Meet Emma
Marilyn Cohen 08.21.08, 6:00 PM ET
There's a new girl in town. her name is Emma, for Electronic Municipal Market Access. She's a free online municipal bond information service from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. I have mentioned in previous columns how you can use Investinginbonds.com to track municipal bond trades. Well, this is the front end of that system--the rules board is where Investinginbonds.com gets its information--and more.

Emma, at emma.msrb.org, is a giant step forward on behalf of the individual investor. It posts not only municipal bond trade data, in as real-time a form as we professionals get, but also the issuer's prospectus (which in the muni business goes under the title "official statement").