JPMorgan Chase & Co. is tightening its grip on the globalcorporate bond market, taking share from Citigroup Inc. and Bank ofAmerica Corp. and topping all underwriters as companies sold arecord $1.17 trillion of debt.

The most profitable U.S. bank's underwrote 7.1 percent of allbond sales in the three months ended March 31, up from 6.5 percentin 2011, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Citigroup moved up twospots to second with 5.7 percent, the same amount it captured lastyear. Bank of America dropped to third with 5.6 percent, down from6.1 percent in 2011. Deutsche Bank AG, which dropped to fourth fromthird, handled 5.5, down from 5.9.

JPMorgan is leading banks reaping the benefits of a FederalReserve outlook that benchmark interest rates will hold near zerountil at least late 2014 and an easing in Europe's debt crisis thathas bolstered confidence that default rates will stay below thehistorical averages. Increased demand for higher-yielding assets isallowing companies from Australia to Amsterdam to borrow atrecord-low rates.

“A real positive outcome on Europe kicked the market into highgear,” said Richard Zogheb, co-head of capital markets originationfor the Americas at Citigroup in New York. He cited EuropeanCentral Bank's unlimited three-year loans to the region's lendersand a restructuring of Greece's debt as reassuring bondholders.“Investor demand has been incredibly strong,” he said.

The average bond yield for companies from the neediest to themost creditworthy is 0.15 percentage point from the record low 3.99percent reached in October 2010, according to Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch's Global Broad Market Corporate & High YieldIndex. Yields fell to 4.14 percent on March 30 from 4.17 percent aweek earlier.

Corporate debt sales at a record start to the year are makingunderwriting one bright spot for Wall Street earnings. Mergers andacquisitions in the quarter fell about 14 percent from the fourthquarter, making it the slowest three-month period in 2 1/2 years,Bloomberg data show.

The largest U.S. banks will probably post a 10 percent declinein first-quarter fixed-income trading revenue from a year earlierand an 8 percent decline in equities trading, Keith Horowitz, aCitigroup bank analyst, said in a March 29 note.

Bloomberg News

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.