Credit Ratings Agencies and Index Providers: ‘Bulls on Parade!‘ Raising Estimates on Robust 2Q26 Activity

Research evidence excerpt

Credit Ratings Agencies and Index Providers: ‘Bulls on Parade!‘ Raising Estimates on Robust 2Q26 Activity

$13 $18

ratings revenues — remained elevated. Debt markets remained active throughout -

the quarter, with S&P Global’s monthly billed issuance (i.e., volumes on which the Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P. and J.P. Morgan.

firm earns transactional ratings revenues) up +43% y/y in April, +15% in May, and Note: Bond issuances by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms,

+23% in June. Following resilient growth in 1Q26, we expect 2Q26E billed Microsoft,covered byandDougOracle.Anmuth.AMZN,MSFTGOOG/GOOGL,and ORCL coveredand METAby

issuance (transactional) will run >20% y/y at S&P and estimate rated issuance Samik Chatterjee.

growth in the high teens % y/y for Moody’s. See the “Key Charts & Tables”

section below to see more of the data we follow.

Looking ahead, our J.P. Morgan Key Issuance Indicator Dashboard (see Table 1J.P.MorganKeyIsuanceIndicatorDashboard)

shows that tight credit spreads, low equity volatility, and constructive global GDP

growth combine to form an attractive backdrop for issuers, even as the 10-year

Treasury yield has moved higher YTD. Even assuming some seasonal slowdown

and moderation in capex-funded issuance in 2H26, we think 2Q26 was strong

enough for both Moody’s and S&P Global to lift their full-year 2026 issuance

and ratings revenue guidance ranges.

Refreshing our models, we now forecast S&P Global’s Ratings segment delivering

organic, constant currency (o/cc) revenue growth of +8.5% y/y in 2026E, above

our +7% prior JPMe and the high end of S&P’s +4-7% guidance, which we suspect

the firm will raise towards the high single digits %. We gauge S&P will move its

2026 billed issuance (transactional) outlook to up MSD-HSD % (vs LSD-MSD %

prior).