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SIFMA Curve


SIFMA (Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) is a trading organization in US. The SIFMA Municipal Swap Index, formerly the Bond Market Association Index, is a market index composed of tax-exempt variable rate demand obligations (VRDOs). VRDOs are municipal bonds with floating interest rates. The SIFMA index is issued weekly.


The SIFMA rate for each interest payment period is equal to the weighted average of the SIFMA index value. Both SIFMA and LIBOR are popular floating rate index. The SIFMA rate represents the average interest rate payable on tax-exempt variable rate demand obligations, while the LIBOR rate represents the interest rate payable on non-tax exempt demand obligations. In general, the SIFMA rate trades as a proportion of LIBOR rate.


The coupon rates of many floating rate bonds or floating rate callable bonds refer to SIFMA index. The change of index has quite impact on the bond values. Thus, the SIFMA curve is major used to price various bonds, such as municipal bonds, municipal debts, bond purchase agreements, etc.


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