Corporate Bond Issuers Drive Continued Surge In New CUSIP Issuance - Municipal Volumes Trend Lower

CUSIP Global Services (CGS) today announced the release of its CUSIP Issuance Trends Report for February 2023. 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 second straight monthly increase in request volume for new corporate identifiers and a slowdown in request volume for new municipal identifiers.

North American corporate requests totaled 6,348 in February, which is up 6.1% on a monthly basis. On a year-over-year basis, North American corporate requests closed out February up 24.5% over year ago totals. The increase in corporate CUSIP request volume was driven largely by a significant surge in domestic corporate debt issuance, which rose 14.0% over strong January totals, driving year-over-year volumes up 42.4%. This was the second straight month of significantly increased volume in corporate debt CUSIP request volume. Certificate of Deposit (CD) volumes also rose this month. Longer-term CDs, with maturities of one year or more climbed 44.8% and short-term CDs, with maturities under one year, were up 6.5% versus last month.

Municipal request volume decreased on both a monthly and annualized basis. The aggregate total of identifier requests for new municipal securities – including municipal bonds, long-term and short-term notes, and commercial paper – fell 3.1% versus January totals. On a year-over-year basis, overall municipal volumes are down 23.5%. Texas led state-level municipal request volume with a total of 96 new CUSIP requests in February, followed by New York (57) and Wisconsin (45).

“Rising rates throughout the month of February did not stop corporate bond issuers from issuing new debt at a rapid clip,” said Gerard Faulkner, Director of Operations for CGS. “We’re seeing the second straight month of strong request volume among corporate issuers and—less surprisingly—we’re seeing a sustained level of high volume in CDs, which are driving year-over-year gains in corporate CUSIP volumes. The same cannot be said for the municipal bond market, where new request volume has been trending down so far this year.”

Requests for international equity CUSIPs fell 24.8% in February while international debt CUSIP requests rose 31.1%. On an annualized basis, international equity CUSIP requests are down 8.8% and international debt CUSIP requests are down 42.5%.

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

Following is a breakdown of new CUSIP Identifier requests by asset class year-to-date through February 2023: