The Fundamentals of Municipal Bonds

This title is a comprehensive guide to the American municipal bond market. This practical guide provides a necessary understanding of the field for all the major players in municipal bond financing - professionals, public officials, and investors.

This informative volume is an update of the long-heralded classic text on the municipal securities market. Written by Judy Wesalo Temel for The Bond Market Association—the leading trade association that represents the players in this market and whose members underwrite 90% of all municipal bonds—this newly revised Fifth Edition deals comprehensively with the many recent developments in the municipal securities market. It provides a basic understanding of the market for a wide range of readers, including experienced professionals, public officials, private investors, academicians, and students. Major changes covered here include:

• The explosive growth of technology and e-commerce
• New disclosure regulations
• Size and composition of the business
• Size and composition of investors
• The use of credit enhancement
• The use of financial products

Along with the addition of an extensive new glossary of municipal terminology and a bibliography, The Fundamentals of Municipal Bonds provides detailed explanations and a variety of relevant examples to illuminate crucial areas such as:

• The Basics of Municipal Securities
• The Issuers
• The Primary and Secondary Markets
• Investing in Bonds
• Credit Analysis and Understanding Interest Rates
• Disclosure and Regulatory Requirements
• Financial Products

Illustrated with numerous tables, charts, and mathematical formulas, this indispensable volume serves as a guide, reference work, and portal to the municipal securities industry. No investor or student of the market can afford to be without this Fifth Edition.

Praise for the Classic Guide to the Bond Market

"This is simply the most comprehensive, useful look-it-up book onmunicipal bonds I've ever read (said with all due respect to TheABC of Municipal Bonds my dad wrote in 1937 when I was nine). ReadFundamentals cover to cover. I'm keeping mine in my briefcase,under my arm, at my fingertips. No accountant, financial advisor,attorney, new bond salesman, reporter, regulator, test-writer,cautious, suspicious first-time investor in municipal bonds, ordinner guest is ever going to catch me again with a question aboutmunicipal bonds I can't answer."-Jim Lebenthal, Chairman, Lebenthal& Co.

"Judy Wesalo Temel gives us the Rosetta stone of the municipal bondmarket, the key to unraveling the many mysteries of 'muni's.' Herbook, a fresh take on the old standard Fundamentals of MunicipalBonds, updates chapter and verse on everything from investing tounderwriting, from over-the-counter to over-the-Internet. The styleis clean, crisp, and as simple as this complex subject can be. Areyou a novice who wonders how to invest in bonds? She lays out thebasics. Examples are easy to follow-even the mathematical ones thatare critical to explaining how municipal bonds work. At the sametime, there is plenty of meat for the pros. Whether you need tostart from square one and learn all about municipal bonds and howthey work, or need a ready reference for specific technicalquestions you run across as a market professional, this book is foryou."-Kathleen Hays, Economics Editor, Credit Markets Reporter, and"Bond Belle" CNBC

"This is a must-read for every scholar, banker, and public officialconcerned with local government finance in the United States. JudyWesalo Temel has done the impossible: she has clearly andinsightfully explained how we finance the development of thenation's vital public infrastructure. This is an important book,one that will be required reading for professionals responsible forplanning, designing, and evaluating publicly financed projects-thehealth care, transportation, and educational facilities that allcitizens rely upon. The bond market is an essential element in thelife of local and state government, and this book makes itunderstandable to all Americans."-Mitchell Moss, Henry Hart RiceProfessor of Urban Planning and Director, Taub Urban ResearchCenter, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NewYork University