US Corporate Debt Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Mia Scarlett, Business | Last updated: September 2, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
US nonfinancial corporations owed $14.45 trillion in debt securities and loans at the end of Q1 2026, per the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts released June 11, 2026. Bank loans account for 8.17% of that. The largest loan category — $2.85 trillion — is the Fed’s catch-all for lending that happens outside the banking system, and on September 11, 2026 the Fed begins publishing what is inside it.
Quick Answer
US nonfinancial corporate business debt reached $14.45 trillion (seasonally adjusted) at Q1 2026, up 4.64% year over year, per the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 release. Depository institutions hold just $1.18 trillion of it. Axis Intelligence Research’s Corporate Credit Opacity Index (CCOI™) reads 35.77 as of Q1 2026 — a baseline reading measuring how much of the stack sits outside continuously disclosed markets.
Key Findings
- According to the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts (June 11, 2026 release), US nonfinancial corporate business held $14.45 trillion in debt securities and loans at Q1 2026, up from $13.81 trillion a year earlier.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that depository institution loans represent 8.17% of total US nonfinancial corporate debt at Q1 2026 — $1,184,780 million of a $14,493,652 million unadjusted total.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that non-bank lenders hold 70.64% of the US corporate loan stock excluding mortgages, down from 71.67% a year earlier, as bank commercial lending grew 11.59% against 6.11% for non-bank loans.
- US business bankruptcy filings totaled 26,941 in the twelve months ended June 30, 2026, a 16.9% increase over the prior year and 111.3% above the June 2022 trough, per the Administrative Office of the US Courts.
- Axis Intelligence Research’s Corporate Credit Opacity Index registered a baseline reading of 35.77 at Q1 2026, 0.36 points above its Q1 2025 level on the same construction.
How Much Corporate Debt Do US Companies Actually Owe?
$14.45 trillion, seasonally adjusted, as of March 31, 2026. That is the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts measure of debt securities and loans owed by nonfinancial corporate business — the number that belongs at the top of any conversation about US corporate credit, because it is the only figure that captures bonds, bank loans, syndicated loans, private credit, commercial paper and commercial mortgages in one consistent frame.
On an unadjusted basis, which is how the instrument detail is published, the total is $14,493,652 million. The two figures differ because the Fed publishes the headline aggregate at a seasonally adjusted annual rate and the balance-sheet detail not seasonally adjusted. Both come from the same June 11, 2026 release. This page uses the unadjusted total wherever instrument shares are computed, so the parts sum to the whole.
US nonfinancial corporate debt by instrument, Q1 2026
| Instrument | Q1 2026 ($M) | Q1 2025 ($M) | YoY change | Share of total | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debt securities | 8,982,885 | 8,684,473 | +3.44% | 61.98% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 29 |
| — of which corporate bonds | 7,510,893 | 7,313,508 | +2.70% | 51.82% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 32 |
| — of which commercial paper | 291,271 | 235,856 | +23.50% | 2.01% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 30 |
| — of which municipal (IRB) | 655,031 | 643,626 | +1.77% | 4.52% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 31 |
| Depository institution loans n.e.c. | 1,184,780 | 1,061,735 | +11.59% | 8.17% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 34 |
| Other loans and advances | 2,850,427 | 2,686,357 | +6.11% | 19.67% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 35 |
| Mortgages | 1,475,560 | 1,392,298 | +5.98% | 10.18% | Fed Z.1, L.103 line 36 |
| Total (unadjusted) | 14,493,652 | 13,824,863 | +4.84% | 100% | Axis calculation, Z.1 lines 29+34+35+36 |
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, June 11, 2026 release; retrieved September 2, 2026. Shares are Axis Intelligence Research calculations on the unadjusted total.
A disclosure that belongs here rather than in a footnote: the three published sub-lines of debt securities — commercial paper, municipal securities and corporate bonds — sum to $8,457,195 million, which leaves $525,690 million of Q1 2026 debt-security liabilities not attributed to a published sub-line in the release table we retrieved. Axis Intelligence Research does not allocate that residual. Every share in the table above is therefore computed against the four instrument lines that reconcile exactly to the total, and the bond, paper and municipal figures are reported as the Fed publishes them.
Mia Scarlett: Strip out the headline and read the growth column instead. Bonds — the part everyone writes about — grew 2.70% in a year. Bank commercial lending grew 11.59%. Commercial paper grew 23.50%. The corporate bond market is the largest bucket and the slowest-moving one, which means the marginal borrowing decision in 2026 is not being made in a syndicate meeting on Park Avenue. It is being made at a bank, at a direct lender, or in the overnight paper market. That is a different credit cycle from the one the bond-spread commentary describes.
Source: Axis Intelligence Research — CC BY 4.0
What Is the Corporate Credit Opacity Index (CCOI™)?
CCOI™ stands for Corporate Credit Opacity Index. It is an Axis Intelligence Research measure of how much of the US nonfinancial corporate debt stack sits in instruments with continuous public disclosure versus instruments where the public record is aggregate-only.
The question it answers is one no published series answers: not how much corporate debt exists, but how much of it can anyone outside the lender actually see. Every input is a line item from the Federal Reserve’s Z.1. The weights are Axis Intelligence Research’s, and they are published below so that anyone can recompute the reading or substitute their own.
The formula
CCOI = 100 × Σ ( sᵢ × oᵢ )
sᵢ = instrument i's share of total nonfinancial corporate debt (Z.1 L.103)
oᵢ = disclosed opacity weight for instrument i, scale 0 (fully disclosed) to 1 (no public record)
Components, weights and rationale
| Component (Z.1 line) | Q1 2026 share | Opacity weight | Why that weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debt securities (line 29) | 61.98% | 0.15 | Post-trade prices reported to FINRA TRACE; rated; offering documents public or available to qualified holders |
| Depository institution loans n.e.c. (line 34) | 8.17% | 0.45 | Supervised lenders; Call Report and H.8 aggregates published; no public deal-level terms |
| Other loans and advances (line 35) | 19.67% | 0.90 | Non-bank, syndicated and securitized lending; the Z.1’s own residual category; no public deal-level reporting |
| Mortgages (line 36) | 10.18% | 0.50 | Liens recorded at county level; public reporting is aggregate |
| CCOI reading, Q1 2026 | 35.77 |
Calculation: (0.6198 × 0.15) + (0.0817 × 0.45) + (0.1967 × 0.90) + (0.1018 × 0.50) = 0.3577, or 35.77 on a 0–100 scale. Both a floating-point and an exact-rational computation return the same figure to two decimals.
Readings
| As of | CCOI™ | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | 35.77 | baseline |
| Q4 2025 | 35.77 | −0.01 from Q1 2026 |
| Q1 2025 | 35.40 | −0.36 from Q1 2026 |
Axis Intelligence Research, computed on Z.1 L.103 instrument levels, June 11, 2026 release. This is the inaugural set of readings; the index has no history prior to those computed here.
Scope. CCOI measures disclosure architecture, not credit quality. A high reading is not a forecast and a low reading is not a safety rating. The weights are judgments about what a third party can observe, not about probability of loss. The index is computed on the Fed’s instrument taxonomy, so any reclassification the Fed makes — and one is coming on September 11, 2026 — will change the composition of the buckets. When it does, Axis Intelligence Research will recompute prior readings on the new basis rather than leaving incompatible numbers side by side.
Reuse is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Axis Intelligence Research, CCOI™, US Corporate Debt Statistics 2026.
Who Lends to American Companies Now — Banks or Everyone Else?
Everyone else, by a wide margin, and the margin is more lopsided than the phrase “bank lending” implies.
Of the $4,035,207 million in US nonfinancial corporate loans outstanding excluding mortgages at Q1 2026, depository institutions hold $1,184,780 million and the Z.1’s “other loans and advances” category holds $2,850,427 million. Axis Intelligence Research finds the non-bank share of the US corporate loan stock at 70.64% as of Q1 2026.
The Fed defines “other loans and advances” for this sector as loans from the rest of the world, the US government and non-bank financial institutions — a category that its own table descriptions note includes syndicated loans to nonfinancial corporate businesses and business loans securitized by depository institutions and finance companies. That is the bucket private credit has been living in.
Non-bank share of US corporate loans (ex-mortgage)
| As of | Depository loans ($M) | Other loans and advances ($M) | Non-bank share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | 1,184,780 | 2,850,427 | 70.64% |
| Q4 2025 | 1,102,480 | 2,796,885 | 71.73% |
| Q1 2025 | 1,061,735 | 2,686,357 | 71.67% |
Source: Fed Z.1 L.103 lines 34–35, June 11, 2026 release. Share is an Axis Intelligence Research calculation: other loans ÷ (depository loans + other loans).
The direction is the interesting part. The non-bank share fell 1.03 percentage points over the year, because bank commercial lending to corporates grew 11.59% while non-bank loans grew 6.11%. One year is not a trend, and this page will not pretend otherwise on three data points. But it does mean the widely repeated story — banks retreating, private credit filling the gap, monotonically — did not describe the twelve months to March 2026.
Mia Scarlett: A credit analyst reads the denominator before the headline. Non-bank lenders still hold seven of every ten dollars of corporate loans, and that is the structural fact. What changed in the last year is the flow, not the stock: banks put on $123 billion of net corporate loans against $164 billion at the non-banks, and on a much smaller base that is banks taking share back at the margin. Whether it survives contact with the next repricing cycle is the open question. Ask again after the Fed shows us what is actually inside the other bucket.
What Changes When the Fed Publishes Private Credit on September 11, 2026?
This is the single most consequential thing happening to US corporate credit data in 2026, and it is a scheduling item rather than a market event, which is why it has attracted almost no coverage.
On August 28, 2026 the Federal Reserve Board published a preview of the upcoming Z.1 release confirming that private credit and hedge funds are being incorporated into the Financial Accounts of the United States, with data reconstructed back to 2012:Q4. The release is scheduled for September 11, 2026.
What the integration adds, per the Board’s preliminary release highlights:
- Three new lending sectors — private debt funds, business development companies, and interval and tender offer funds
- US-domiciled middle-market CLOs, added to the asset-backed securities issuer sector, with their private credit loan holdings shown as ABS assets and their issued debt recorded as a corporate bond liability
- Two new instrument categories — private credit loans, and private debt fund shares
- New rest-of-world detail on private credit loans, because the loan instrument captures both US- and foreign-domiciled vehicles
The Board’s own technical Q&A states the position that held until now: as of the January 9, 2026 release, private credit loans were not separately identified on nonfinancial business sector balance sheets. That is what is changing.
Two practical consequences for anyone who cites US corporate debt statistics:
- A back-series appears where none existed. Fourteen years of private credit stock, on a consistent official methodology, land at once. Every private-credit market-size estimate in circulation acquires a public benchmark to be measured against.
- Some existing lines get re-cut. Middle-market CLO debt is recorded as a corporate bond liability, which means the corporate bond aggregate and the “other loans and advances” residual will not mean exactly what they meant in the June release. The Fed also flags that nonfinancial corporate business data have been revised from 2024:Q1 forward to reflect new IRS Statistics of Income benchmark data.
Every figure on this page is stated as of the June 11, 2026 release and carries that date for exactly this reason.
Mia Scarlett: The interesting part is not that the number will be big. Everyone already assumes it is big. The interesting part is 2012:Q4 — the Fed is not publishing a snapshot, it is publishing a history, which means for the first time the growth rate of private credit becomes an official statistic rather than a fund manager’s slide. Histories are how you check whether a thing compounded or whether it was reclassified into existence. Some of the loans that will show up in the new private credit line are, today, sitting in the residual we just measured.
Are US Corporate Defaults and Bankruptcies Rising in 2026?
Bankruptcies, yes, and sharply. Bank loan delinquencies, no.
The Administrative Office of the US Courts reported on July 28, 2026 that business bankruptcy filings reached 26,941 in the twelve months ended June 30, 2026, up 16.9% from 23,043 a year earlier. Chapter 11 filings across all debtor types reached 10,320, up 22.7%.
US business bankruptcy filings, 12 months ended June 30
| Year ending June 30 | Business filings | Chapter 11 filings (all debtors) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 26,941 | 10,320 | US Courts, Table F-2 |
| 2025 | 23,043 | 8,408 | US Courts, Table F-2 |
| 2024 | 22,060 | 8,717 | US Courts, Table F-2 |
| 2023 | 15,724 | 5,986 | US Courts, Table F-2 |
| 2022 | 12,748 | 4,429 | US Courts, Table F-2 |
Source: Administrative Office of the US Courts, Bankruptcy Filings statistics, published July 28, 2026; retrieved September 2, 2026.
Business filings are 111.3% above the June 2022 low and Chapter 11 filings are 133.0% above it. The Courts note that total filings, at 608,511, remain far below historical highs — total filings peaked near 1.6 million in September 2010.
Now the counterweight, from the other primary source that matters here. The Federal Reserve’s charge-off and delinquency release put the delinquency rate on commercial and industrial loans at all commercial banks at 1.27% in Q2 2026, seasonally adjusted — down from 1.33% in Q1 2026 and 1.29% a year earlier. For reference, the same series read 1.09% in Q4 2019 and peaked at 4.39% in Q3 2009.
C&I loan delinquency rate, all commercial banks (SA)
| Quarter | Rate | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026:Q2 | 1.27% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
| 2026:Q1 | 1.33% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
| 2025:Q4 | 1.34% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
| 2025:Q2 | 1.29% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
| 2019:Q4 | 1.09% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
| 2009:Q3 | 4.39% | Fed, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates |
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates on Loans and Leases at Commercial Banks, last updated August 25, 2026; retrieved September 2, 2026.
These two series are not in conflict. They are measuring different populations. Bank delinquency data covers the 8.17% of corporate debt that sits on supervised bank balance sheets. Bankruptcy filings cover every incorporated debtor that reaches a courthouse, including the small and mid-sized borrowers whose debt sits in the other 91.83%.
Mia Scarlett: This is where a lot of coverage goes wrong. A benign bank delinquency rate is cited as evidence that corporate credit is fine, when it is evidence that bank-held corporate credit is fine. The bank number is a report on one-twelfth of the stack, produced by the one lender class that has to report. The court filings are the only broad-population read available, and they are up 16.9% while the bank read is down six basis points. Those facts sit together comfortably: the deterioration is happening where the reporting is not.
What Are Corporate Bond Spreads Telling Us Right Now?
Very little that is alarming, which is itself the observation.
The ICE BofA US High Yield Index option-adjusted spread closed at 2.63% on August 31, 2026, per data distributed through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The four preceding sessions read 2.60%, 2.63%, 2.67% and 2.70%.
Data note: the ICE BofA index series carries redistribution restrictions. Axis Intelligence Research cites individual dated observations and links the source rather than republishing the series, and the CSV accompanying this page reflects that.
A high-yield spread with a “2” in front of it is a market that is not pricing a corporate credit problem. Set it against the bankruptcy count in the previous section and the tension is plain: the priced market and the filed market are describing different economies. That is not a contradiction to resolve; it is a composition effect. The high-yield index requires a minimum $100 million outstanding and a rated, publicly issued security. The companies filing Chapter 11 in volume are mostly not in it.
Net borrowing by instrument, Q1 2026 (seasonally adjusted annual rate)
| Instrument | Net incurrence ($M SAAR) | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Debt securities | 636,556 | 51.0% |
| — corporate bonds | 469,792 | 37.6% |
| — commercial paper | 144,600 | 11.6% |
| — municipal securities | 18,468 | 1.5% |
| Depository institution loans n.e.c. | 333,832 | 26.7% |
| Other loans and advances | 162,570 | 13.0% |
| Mortgages | 116,300 | 9.3% |
| Total | 1,249,258 | 100% |
Source: Fed Z.1, Integrated Macroeconomic Accounts table S11.1.i.q, lines 52–60, June 11, 2026 release; retrieved September 2, 2026. Shares are Axis Intelligence Research calculations. Sub-lines of debt securities do not sum to the debt securities total; the residual is not allocated.
Is US Corporate Leverage Actually High?
Against output, it is lower than a year ago.
Axis Intelligence Research computed a corporate debt-to-output ratio directly from two lines of the same Fed release, avoiding the methodology mismatch that comes from pairing a Fed debt stock with a Commerce Department GDP series:
Corporate debt-to-output = nonfinancial corporate debt securities and loans (SAAR)
÷ nonfinancial corporate gross value added (SAAR)
| As of | Debt ($M SAAR) | Gross value added ($M SAAR) | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | 14,453,810 | 16,213,904 | 89.14% |
| Q4 2025 | 14,141,492 | 15,997,146 | 88.40% |
| Q1 2025 | 13,813,363 | 15,226,723 | 90.72% |
Source: Fed Z.1, BCNSDODNS and IMA table S11.1.i.q line 1, June 11, 2026 release. Ratio is an Axis Intelligence Research calculation.
Debt grew 4.64% over the year. Nonfinancial corporate gross value added grew 6.48%. The ratio fell 1.58 percentage points. Both numerator and denominator come from the same quarterly release and the same sector definition, which is the reason to prefer this construction — it is one release, one methodology, one revision cycle.
Scope. This ratio compares a stock to an annualized flow, so its level is not directly comparable to a firm-level debt/EBITDA multiple. Its use here is directional and within-series.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure on this page was retrieved from a primary source during production on September 2, 2026. No figure is reproduced from a secondary aggregator, a market-research summary, or model memory.
Primary sources fetched and logged:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, June 11, 2026 release — instrument-level balance sheet and flow detail for nonfinancial corporate business (via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis release tables for table S11.1.i.q, and the headline series BCNSDODNS and NCBDBIQ027S)
- Federal Reserve Board, Z.1 Preliminary Release Highlights, First Quarter 2026, published August 28, 2026 — private credit and hedge fund integration
- Federal Reserve Board, Z.1 Technical Q&As, updated June 11, 2026 — private credit treatment prior to integration
- Federal Reserve Board, Z.1 Table Descriptions — instrument definitions for “other loans and advances”
- Federal Reserve Board, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates on Loans and Leases at Commercial Banks, updated August 25, 2026 — C&I delinquency series
- Administrative Office of the US Courts, Bankruptcy Filings, published July 28, 2026 — business and Chapter 11 filings, twelve months ended June 30
- ICE Data Indices via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, ICE BofA US High Yield Index Option-Adjusted Spread, observation dated August 31, 2026
Formulas. Three figures on this page are Axis Intelligence Research constructions, each computed from sourced inputs with the formula stated inline: the Corporate Credit Opacity Index (CCOI™), the non-bank share of the corporate loan stock, and the corporate debt-to-output ratio. All instrument shares are Axis calculations against the unadjusted Z.1 total.
Arithmetic verification. Every calculation was run twice — once in floating point, once in exact rational arithmetic — and the two passes agree to the precision reported.
Seasonal adjustment. The Fed publishes the headline corporate debt aggregate at a seasonally adjusted annual rate and the instrument detail unadjusted. Shares and instrument comparisons use the unadjusted basis so components reconcile to the total; the debt-to-output ratio uses the adjusted basis on both sides. Each table states which basis it uses.
Unallocated residual. The published sub-lines of debt securities do not sum to the debt securities total in the release table retrieved. The residual — $525,690 million at Q1 2026 — is reported and not allocated.
Scope. The Z.1 nonfinancial corporate business sector covers private for-profit domestic nonfinancial corporations, including S corporations, corporate farms and equity REITs. It excludes financial corporations, partnerships, LLCs and sole proprietorships, which the Fed reports in the nonfinancial noncorporate sector. Figures are therefore not comparable to “US business debt” totals that include noncorporate borrowers.
About This Dataset
us-corporate-debt-statistics.csv contains every numeric claim on this page as a row with its value, unit, as-of date, source organization, source document, source URL, retrieval date, primary-source flag, and — for Axis-calculated rows — the formula.
License: CC BY 4.0. Free to reuse, redistribute and build on, with attribution.
Citation: Axis Intelligence Research, US Corporate Debt Statistics 2026, 2026.
Distribution: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub.
Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). US corporate debt statistics 2026: The $14.45 trillion stack, private credit, defaults and refinancing. axis-intelligence.com/us-corporate-debt-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research. “US Corporate Debt Statistics 2026: The $14.45 Trillion Stack, Private Credit, Defaults and Refinancing.” Axis Intelligence Research, 2026, axis-intelligence.com/us-corporate-debt-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research. “US Corporate Debt Statistics 2026: The $14.45 Trillion Stack, Private Credit, Defaults and Refinancing.” Axis Intelligence Research. 2026. axis-intelligence.com/us-corporate-debt-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Federal Reserve’s corporate debt total include private credit?
Yes, but until now it has been invisible inside a larger category. Private credit loans to nonfinancial corporations have been captured within “other loans and advances,” the Z.1 line that covers lending from non-bank financial institutions. The Fed’s technical guidance stated that as of the January 9, 2026 release, private credit loans were not separately identified on nonfinancial business sector balance sheets. That changes on September 11, 2026, when private credit becomes a distinct instrument category with data back to 2012:Q4.
What is included in “other loans and advances” in Fed corporate debt data?
Loans from the rest of the world, the US government and non-bank financial institutions. The Fed’s table descriptions specify that the instrument also includes syndicated loans to nonfinancial corporate businesses and business loans securitized by depository institutions and finance companies. At Q1 2026 it stood at $2,850,427 million — 19.67% of all nonfinancial corporate debt and the largest single loan category.
Why do published US corporate debt figures differ so much between sources?
Three reasons, in order of how often they cause the confusion. First, sector definition: the Fed’s nonfinancial corporate business sector excludes partnerships, LLCs and sole proprietorships, so figures including those run higher. Second, seasonal adjustment: the same quarter can be quoted as $14.45 trillion (adjusted) or $14.49 trillion (unadjusted). Third, instrument scope: some totals count only bonds and bank loans and drop mortgages and commercial paper. Any citable figure should carry its sector, its adjustment basis and its release date.
Which quarter of corporate debt data is currently the most recent?
Q1 2026, published June 11, 2026. The Z.1 releases roughly ten weeks after quarter-end, so as of early September 2026 the Q2 figure is not yet public — it arrives September 11, 2026. Bank delinquency data runs one quarter ahead of the Z.1 and is current through Q2 2026.
Do bank C&I loan statistics tell you what is happening in corporate credit overall?
Not on their own. Depository institutions hold 8.17% of US nonfinancial corporate debt. C&I delinquency and charge-off data are high-quality, frequently updated and cover a small and unrepresentative slice of the borrower population — larger, supervised-lender relationships. Broad-population deterioration shows up first in court filings, which rose 16.9% in the year to June 2026 while the bank delinquency rate fell.
Is US corporate debt at a record high in 2026?
In dollars, yes — $14.45 trillion is the highest level the Z.1 has recorded. Measured against corporate output it is lower than a year ago: 89.14% of nonfinancial corporate gross value added at Q1 2026 versus 90.72% at Q1 2025, because output grew faster than debt. Record nominal debt in a growing nominal economy is a weak signal on its own.
What is the difference between corporate debt and corporate credit?
Corporate debt is the stock — what companies owe, measured on balance sheets. Corporate credit is the market for it: who lends, on what terms, at what spread, and how that changes. A page reporting only the stock misses the shift in who holds it, which is where most of the change of the last decade has happened.
How do you measure how transparent the corporate debt market is?
That is what CCOI™ was built for. The Corporate Credit Opacity Index weights each instrument’s share of total corporate debt by how much of that instrument’s terms and performance reach the public record, on a 0–1 scale, and sums to a 0–100 reading. The Q1 2026 baseline is 35.77. Inputs are Z.1 line items; the weights are disclosed above so the reading can be recomputed or challenged.
Are corporate bond spreads a reliable early warning for corporate defaults?
They are a reliable read on the population inside the index, which is not the population that files for bankruptcy. The ICE BofA high-yield index requires a rated, publicly issued security with at least $100 million outstanding. At 2.63% on August 31, 2026, the spread says large rated issuers are financing comfortably. It says nothing about a mid-market borrower on a floating-rate direct loan, and that is the borrower the filing statistics are counting.