Corporate & Municipal CUSIP Request Volumes Climb For Third Straight Month - Corporate Issuance Up 23%, Municipal Volumes Up 4% In April

CUSIP Global Services (CGS) today announced the release of its CUSIP Issuance Trends Report for April 2021. The report, which tracks the issuance of new security identifiers as an early indicator of debt and capital markets activity over the next quarter, found a significant monthly increase in request volume for new corporate and municipal identifiers.

CUSIP identifier requests for the broad category of U.S. and Canadian corporate equity and debt rose 23.2% in April from last month. The monthly increase was driven largely by U.S. corporate debt identifier requests, which increased by 20.1%. On a year-over-year basis, corporate CUSIP requests were down 11.6%, reflecting a significant year-over-year decline in January of 2021.

Monthly municipal volume also increased in April. The aggregate total of all municipal securities – including municipal bonds, long-term and short-term notes, and commercial paper – rose 4.3% versus March totals. On an annualized basis, municipal CUSIP identifier request volumes were up 17.2% through April. Texas led state-level municipal request volume with a total of 179 new CUSIP requests in April, followed by California with 129 and New York with 102.

"Now into our third straight month of steadily increasing CUSIP request volume, we're seeing a trend toward increased debt and capital markets activity in U.S. markets," said Gerard Faulkner, Director of Operations for CGS. "Issuers of corporate and municipal debt continue to take advantage of a combination of low interest rates and an improving economic outlook."

Requests for international equity and debt CUSIPs both declined in April. International equity CUSIP requests were down 35.5% versus March.

To view the full CUSIP Issuance Trends report for March, click here.

Following is a breakdown of new CUSIP Identifier requests by asset class year-to-date through April 2021: