Hyperscaler Debt Insurance Hits Highest Cost Since 2021

The cost to insure the bonds of Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle against default has climbed to the highest levels going back to 2021, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing bond data provider Solve.

The trading has gone vertical. More than $9 billion of credit default swaps tied to Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia changed hands on average each week in September, up from less than $2 billion in July.

Oracle sits at the sharp end: its five-year CDS spread widened to a record 288 basis points. Meta reached 108 and Nvidia 101, "both records." Protection on Alphabet and Amazon is at "all-time peaks," and Microsoft spreads have climbed too.

The debt stack behind those spreads is newly large. The five biggest hyperscalers issued $121 billion in US corporate bonds last year, against an average of just $28 billion a year between 2020 and 2024. AI-linked companies have raised $466 billion in debt so far in 2026, compared with $101 billion in the same period in 2025.

Credit desks are the busy table now. Multi-asset and equity managers "increasingly use CDS, traditionally used by credit investors, as a cost-effective hedge against AI exposure," the reporting notes, helping push prices to records. The move lands within days of S&P cutting Meta's credit outlook to negative over its AI capex plans.