Fixed Income Perspectives: US Corporate Bond Issuance

In 2015, US corporations issued more debt than any year on record, to the tune of $1.5 trillion. As you see in the nearby chart, issuance has been generally increasing over the years. That, in and of itself, is not unusual, considering the economy has been growing, corporate earnings have been growing, and inflation has been slowly eroding the purchasing power of the dollar (a dollar in 2016 doesn’t buy as much as it did in 2000).