Municipal CUSIP Request Volume Climbs For Third Straight Month - Corporate Volume Down In March And For The Year

CUSIP Global Services (CGS) today announced the release of its CUSIP Issuance Trends Report for March 2019. 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 noteworthy increase in requests for new municipal debt identifiers, while requests for corporate identifiers declined in March.  

CUSIP identifier requests for the broad category of U.S.- and Canada-issued equity and debt, decreased 6.8% between February and March. The decline was driven by a 13.2% decrease in requests for U.S. corporate debt identifiers and a 22.2% decrease in request for Canadian security identifiers. On a year-over-year basis, total volume for North American corporates was down 7.1%. 

Municipal CUSIP requests increased in March. The aggregate total of all municipal securities – including municipal bonds, long-term and short-term notes, and commercial paper – saw a 4.6% increase versus February 2019 and a 13.9% increase on a year-over-year basis. This was the third straight monthly increase in muni request volume.

"Interest rates are holding at historic lows on a global basis and central banks are signaling that they will stay that way for the near term," said Gerard Faulkner, Director of Operations for CUSIP Global Services. "Clearly, that sentiment is weighing on the minds of issuers who are seizing the opportunity to raise new capital, but they are doing so at a fairly measured pace."

Requests for new international debt and equity CUSIP International Numbers (CINS) were both up significantly in March. International equity CINS were up 271.1% versus the previous month, while international debt CINS increased 38.6% during the same period.

To view a copy of the full CUSIP Issuance Trends report, please click here.

Following is a breakdown of New CUSIP Identifier requests by asset class year-to-date, through March 2019: