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Request volumes for muni identifiers from CUSIP surged in March, suggesting that issuance will be strong in the second quarter of 2018.
The aggregate total of all municipal securities – including municipal bonds, long-term and short-term notes, and commercial paper – logged a 30.9% increase over February's activity. That surge in growth was driven primarily by a 37.9% increase in new municipal bond identifier requests. But of course, on a year-over-year basis, total municipal identifier request volume is down 27.6% versus the same period last year, given the drop off in previous months. Indeed, prior to March, municipal bond issuance had been trending downward following the implementation of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, which repeals advanced refunding of municipal bonds. (See releases for totals in February and January 2018.)
In addition, CUSIP identifier requests for the broad category of U.S. and Canadian corporate offerings, which includes both equity and debt, totaled 4,625 in March, up 9.0% from February. On a year-over-year basis, that puts total corporate identifier request volume for the first quarter of 2018 7.7% higher than the same period in 2017.
As a reminder, the CUSIP Issuance Trends Report tracks the issuance of new security identifiers as an early indicator of debt and capital markets activity.
The full release can be found here, and the report on which it is based can be found here.
