Talk:Municipal bond

Risks: Add ratings downgrade risk ?
Risks could be expanded to add a ratings downgrade risk. Municipal bonds have low liquidity and consequently suffer large drops in price after a significant ratings downgrade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.149.211.131 (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"While I am not a mathematician..."
Can someone cleanup the section that begins "While I am not a mathematician..."? Thanks. Finnancier 07:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism?
http://www.allbusiness.com/personal-finance/investing-bond-investments/619160-1.html

Careful Cowboy (talk) 15:44, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Denomination
Skimming over the article, I can't tell if it mentions the minimum denomination of $5,000. Did I miss it? Chadlupkes (talk) 22:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

High Grade Munincipal Bonds

 * I need information on High Grade Munis but I see that this article lacks information, and I cant find it anywhere. Does anyone know anything about these? If so, please input your knowlegde.

--49ersfanforlife (talk) 14:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Bad link
The link 'certificate of participation' at the end of this section points innapropriately to an article on 'certificate of deposit'. 04:12, 22 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbrannick (talk • contribs)

This article seems US-centric
Do other countries also have municipal bonds? XOttawahitech (talk) 20:05, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
 * yes, though other countries markets aren't as well developed; your own country has them (read here): . I agree as written this is currently a bit US-centric, and would benefit to being made more global, with perhaps a section specific to the US muni bond market which is I think the largest in the world and attracts global investors, I've tagged it so hopefully someone with expertise can help.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 07:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes many other countries have municipal bonds or near equivalents. For example Canada, South Africa and UK. I don't know the history of the term, but my impression is that the idea may be more common in Common Law countries. But on the continent I think there are some of these bonds, they may be called "local authority bonds". However, this article is clearly focusing on the US Municipal bond market of which I have a good understanding. The terms below such as General Obligations and Revenue are specific creatures of the US and the States. Because there are so many states in the US and many of their economies are large relative to other countries it is somewhat of a unique market. I don't agree this article should be broadened beyond the US, other than to clean up the definition and maybe have some reference and explanation about other countries. Due to the size of the market someone searching for "Municipal Bond" usually means US municipal bond. The bankruptcy and recovery laws and relation of the Federal and State governments is somewhat unique compared to other countries and is a product of both the US Constitution and tradition Greenbe (talk) 20:11, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll try my hand at editing the main article to help define this and broaden it. I think a reference into a separate article about International Municipal Bonds or local authority equivalents is a good idea, but we need an expert to write it. I did some searching and I think because they are not so common or large elsewhere it is hard to find good material about them.Greenbe (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

No citations, improvements needed (return analysis)
Greetings Wikipedians! I commend all the contributors for their efforts. But sadly, this article lacks inline citations to reliable, verifiable sources. There are no citations - none at all - in the Return Analysis section, except for the one I added today. This violates Wikipedia's policy on verifiability (set forth here: Wikipedia policy on verifiability), which states: "Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it....The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."

I hope someone will step forward to remedy this problem. Readers who come to this article seeking knowledge need some way to verify that the formulas (formulae?) are accurate and accepted by authorities in the field. Unsourced material is subject to being removed. My modest qualifications for this subject, such as they are, are set forth in my user profile. Cordially, BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Return Analysis update: I moved text around to make this section more useful. Why not lead off by giving the reader a tool that can be used to compare munis to corporates, rather than proving (with an unsourced formula) that you can't compare a muni to a corporate with the same coupon. There's something obtuse and pedantic about that. Also, it's been two weeks and nobody has stepped forward to provide citations to two of the formulas. Unsourced material is subject to being removed. I added "citations needed" footnotes. Cordially, BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 13:07, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Buzz, thanks for your edits, this has been on my list to fix up a while but it has so many... issues, I haven't gotten around to it much. I also removed some material, and I think a lot of this can be pared down further. These types of articles tend to attract editors who think they are auditioning for Business Insider or Investopedia, and write a lot of "how" and, I definitely agree, use a lot of pedantry. I think the lede can be shortened, the Issuance process tightened or consolidated, same with the Characteristics section, and, more to the point of this Talk section header, I think the comp to corp bonds can be a sentence, no formulas required. Something like "Municipal bonds often pay a lower rate than equally assessed corporate bonds, but in some cases the state or municipality may offer tax exemption from their own issued bonds to their own residents, thus enticing sales to residents with a higher effective yield after factoring in lack of tax on proceeds." Done. Or, I mean that could be fixed, just wrote it as I go here, but the point being that I think a lot of this article can replace whole sections with single sentences. Thanks for your efforts, and feel free to axe anything CNed, a lot has been for like 8 years. JesseRafe (talk) 13:50, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * @JesseRafe: Thanks for your comments. I agree that there's an excess of information here and not enough authority in the form of inline citations. I've come across a few financial articles that were written by students as class assignments in the early days before Wikipedia was as strict about verifiability as it is today. That may be how this came to be. I'll press on with it. I welcome other editors' thoughts and contributions, including yours. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 17:48, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * @JesseRafe: I've just published a major reorganization and condensed the entire article somewhat. The History section strikes me as expendable, but financial historians (like me) enjoy reading such stuff. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 12:48, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Looks good! I made a few minor changes, mostly copyediting stuff that missed your eye as you were doing big changes and reorganizing, and a few bold cuts. Some of the ELs, See Also, etc section contents were in the wrong places. If I recall previously those "back matter" sections were unwieldly, but are pretty tightened up. I removed some of the articles you may have added or were already there before because the EL section isn't really for articles, but a Further reading section could be. I didn't re-read the History section, but at three paras looks fine and appropriate for the breadth and scope of an article of this subject and length. Kudos! JesseRafe (talk) 14:10, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * @JesseRafe: I'm OK with all the changes you made today. I appreciate them. Another set of eyes is always a good thing. Regards, BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 15:34, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Return of Return
Bonds 101: TOTAL RETURN = PRICE RETURN + COUPON RETURN. As of this moment, the word "return" doesn't appear even once. Pi314m (talk) 09:42, 1 August 2021 (UTC)