The General Motors Co. assembly plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, on June 25, 2025. Photographer: Mauricio Palos/Bloomberg.
Companies sold $37 billion of investment-grade bonds in the United States on Monday, kicking off what’s expected to be a record year for issuance. Twenty companies, including General Motors Co.’s auto-financing arm and gas pipeline operator Williams Cos., tapped the market for new debt after the holiday break, marking the busiest day for high-grade bond offerings since October. Foreign banks including Credit Agricole SA and UBS Group AG also helped fuel the selling spree.
The U.S. investment-grade debt market is expected to see a record year of issuance, with analysts anticipating that companies will seize on lower interest rates to finance mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and the data center buildout at the heart of the artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom. The rush of new issues is also expected to spur more trading of corporate bonds.
The first full week of the year is typically marked by strong activity across debt markets as borrowers return from a mid-December hiatus. The volume of debt sold on Monday was the largest since October 30, when almost $42 billion in notes were priced, led by Meta Platforms Inc.’s jumbo bond sale—and slightly exceeded the volume seen on the first Monday of 2025.
“Today is akin to a packed midwinter farmers’ market with dealers peddling their new bonds to investors who are starved of supply after the holiday break,” said Mark Clegg, a senior fixed-income trader at Allspring Global Investments.
Some borrowers may be seeking to sell debt earlier than planned to avoid competition with the massive cloud-computing companies known as hyperscalers, according to Robert Smalley, managing director at MacKay Shields.
Firms are expected to sell $215 billion of high-grade debt in January alone, an all-time monthly high, according to an informal survey of debt underwriters.
Major U.S. banks are expected to come to the market after reporting earnings starting next week, which will also help fuel issuance in January, according to Sal Naro, chief investment officer of Coherence Credit Strategies. “Demand will pace itself to be able to absorb” supply, he added.
Companies tapping the market for new debt also include the financial services arms of Ford Motor Co. and equipment maker Caterpillar Inc., as well as power suppliers Entergy Corp. and Constellation Energy Corp.
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