CCC Minus AAA Credit Spread

The series is the average yield on CCC-rated corporate bonds minus the average yield on AAA-rated ones, both all-sector rating buckets from the Federal Reserve data named above, plotted daily over three years. Both sides are yields from the same day, so the gap removes the level of interest rates and leaves the risk premium.

The gap is in percentage points: how much more a CCC borrower pays than a AAA borrower for the same money. A flat or narrowing gap means credit is cheap for everyone. A widening gap means the market is repricing risk from the bottom up.

Two limits. This is not a technology measure: the buckets cover all sectors, and they work as a proxy only because AAA is about where cash-rich hyperscalers borrow and CCC is about where the most indebted datacentre builders borrow. And it is not a credit default swap, because single-name CDS quotes are licensed and cannot be republished. A credit scare elsewhere can move this series with nothing changing in AI, so read it next to the builders' own filings on the capex-vs-debt page.