Introduction
A DCM analyst's day-to-day deliverables look meaningfully different from those of an M&A analyst or an ECM analyst. Where M&A analysts spend their time on bespoke financial models and sector-specific case work, DCM analysts produce a relatively narrow set of recurring deliverables that get reused, refreshed, and re-templated across issuers and over time. The analytical judgment shows up not in building things from scratch but in how the standard outputs get adapted to a specific issuer's situation and a specific market window.
Understanding what those outputs are matters for candidates because the DCM interview implicitly tests whether they have a working mental model of the deliverables they will produce as analysts. This article walks through the most common DCM workstreams: indicative pricing runs, market updates, peer trading curve and refinancing wall analyses, and the pitch decks and rating agency presentations that bookend most of the work.
Indicative Pricing Runs
The single most common DCM analyst deliverable is the indicative pricing run. An indicative pricing run is a one-page (or short multi-page) summary showing where a hypothetical new bond from the issuer would price today across a set of tenors, expressed as both a coupon and a spread to the relevant benchmark curve.
How an Indicative Pricing Run Gets Built
The build is structured and follows the same sequence every time, which is why the deliverable scales: an experienced analyst can produce a clean run in 30 minutes, while a new analyst takes most of an afternoon at first.
Pull the Issuer Curve
Use Bloomberg, MarketAxess, or the bank's internal pricing system to pull every outstanding bond from the issuer, mapping each to a yield-to-worst and a credit spread (G-spread or Z-spread depending on whether the bond has embedded options).
Construct a Smooth Issuer Curve
Plot the bonds against tenor and fit a smooth curve through them, identifying any outliers driven by tenor-specific demand, illiquidity, or covenant features.
Identify Peer Composite
Pick three to seven peer issuers in the same sector with similar ratings, capital structure, and liquidity, and pull each one's curve in the same way.
Compare to Peers
At each tenor on the issuer's curve, compute the spread gap to the peer composite. Tight gaps suggest the issuer is fair to peers; wide gaps suggest a credit story or rating-driven divergence.
Add New Issue Concession
Layer the current new-issue concession (typically 5 to 25 basis points in tight markets, 25 to 50 in stressed conditions, and wider in HY than IG) on top of the secondary fair-value spread.
Convert Spread to Coupon
Use the relevant benchmark (Treasury for USD IG, the SOFR swap curve, the bund curve for euros) to translate the new-issue spread back into an implied coupon. The deliverable shows both the spread and the coupon at each tenor.
- New Issue Concession
The spread premium an issuer pays over its existing secondary market trading levels to compensate investors for absorbing primary supply on a new bond. New issue concession (NIC) typically ranges from a few basis points in tight markets to 25 to 50 basis points in stressed conditions, with HY deals typically pricing wider than IG deals on the same axis. Bankers calculate NIC by comparing the new deal's reoffer spread to the issuer's existing on-the-run secondary curve, mapped to the same tenor.
When an Indicative Pricing Run Goes Out
DCM teams send indicative pricing to frequent issuers on a recurring basis (weekly for clients in active dialogue, monthly for more passive coverage) and on demand whenever a CFO or treasurer asks for a market read. The deliverable is also the core analytical content inside any DCM pitch deck. A senior analyst can produce indicative pricing for fifteen to twenty issuers in a single morning during an active issuance window.
Daily and Weekly Market Updates
The market update is the second pillar of recurring DCM deliverables. Almost every bulge bracket DCM team publishes a daily or weekly market update covering the bond market. The update is a public-side document that goes to issuers and internal teams as market color.
What Goes Into a Market Update
A typical weekly market update covers deals priced (size, tenor, spread, coupon, oversubscription), deals in registration or pre-launch, fund flows across IG, HY, EM, and leveraged loan funds, benchmark curve moves, sector themes, and notable rating actions. For hyperscaler bond issuance or other high-profile flows, the update typically includes a short narrative section. The update is read by treasury teams at issuers, by senior bankers across the firm, and by other product groups who want the market backdrop for their own pitches.
Peer Curve and Refinancing Wall Analyses
Peer trading curve analyses and refinancing wall summaries are the two analytical outputs that anchor most DCM pitches. They describe where an issuer is and where it has to go.
Peer Trading Curve Analysis
A peer trading curve analysis builds the issuer's bond curve alongside curves for three to seven comparable issuers, plotted as spread-to-Treasury (or spread-to-swap) against tenor. The analysis answers a specific question: where does the issuer trade relative to peers, and does the gap suggest mispricing, rating-driven divergence, or an issuer-specific credit story? The deliverable is typically a single chart with a short narrative table calling out the bps gaps at the most-traded tenors.
Refinancing Wall Summaries
A refinancing wall summary maps the issuer's outstanding bond and loan maturities by year for the next five to ten years, showing how much debt comes due in each year and what rate environment the issuer faces if it has to refinance. The summary highlights "walls" (concentrated maturity years) and "gaps" (years with little maturing debt). The deliverable is the launching point for refinancing conversations: should the issuer pre-fund the wall with a new bond now, run a tender offer to retire bonds early, or wait for better market conditions? Refinancing walls are particularly important when sector-wide refinancing pressure builds (the post-2020 zero-rate maturities now coming due into a higher-rate environment is the textbook example), because issuers need a multi-year plan to manage them.
- Maturity Wall
A concentrated cluster of bond or loan maturities falling in a narrow window, typically a single calendar year or quarter, that creates refinancing risk for the issuer if market conditions deteriorate before the wall is addressed. Maturity walls form when an issuer prints a series of bonds with similar tenors over a short period (a five-year benchmark printed in 2022 and another in 2023 will both come due in 2027 and 2028), or when a sector-wide issuance burst (the 2020 to 2021 zero-rate maturities) creates a market-wide wall years later. DCM bankers run refinancing wall analyses precisely to identify these clusters and plan the multi-year refinancing or tender-offer sequence that smooths them.
| Workstream | Typical frequency | Length | Primary use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indicative pricing run | Weekly or on demand | 1-3 pages | Issuer market read, pitch input |
| Market update | Daily or weekly | 5-15 pages | Internal and external market color |
| Peer trading curve analysis | Per pitch or per dialogue | 1-3 pages | Pitch anchor, rating discussion |
| Refinancing wall summary | Per pitch or quarterly | 1-2 pages | Multi-year refinancing planning |
| Rating agency slide pack | Per rating refresh or new mandate | 30-60 pages | Agency analytical team meetings |
| DCM pitch deck | Per mandate opportunity | 20-30 pages | Beauty contest, RFP response |
DCM Pitch Decks and Rating Agency Presentations
The two heaviest DCM deliverables are the pitch deck and the rating agency presentation. Both are the work products that take the most analyst hours and that show up most directly in mandate decisions and rating outcomes.
DCM Pitch Deck Structure
A DCM pitch deck is meaningfully shorter than an M&A pitch (typically 20 to 30 slides versus 60 to 100 for an M&A pitch). The shorter length reflects the narrower scope: a DCM pitch is about issuance recommendations rather than strategic alternatives. The standard sections appear in roughly the same sequence across most banks and most pitch types.
| Section | Typical slides | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| Executive summary | 1-2 | The recommendation in one page (size, tranche, tenor, format, syndicate) |
| Market overview | 3-5 | Rates and credit backdrop, sector themes, recent comparable deals |
| Issuer peer curve | 2-3 | Issuer's bond curve plotted against peer composite |
| Indicative pricing | 1-2 | Spread and coupon across tenors, with NIC layered in |
| Structuring recommendation | 3-5 | Why this size, this tranche, this tenor, this format |
| Rating analysis | 2-4 | Methodology grids applied to the issuer's expected ratios |
| Investor base | 2-3 | Anchor accounts and expected demand by investor type |
| Syndicate strategy | 2-3 | Bookrunner roles, fee proposal, allocation philosophy |
Rating Agency Slide Packs
Rating agency presentations are heavier, typically 30 to 60 slides, and are built for the agencies' analytical teams (Moody's, S&P, Fitch). The deck walks through the issuer's business, financials, capital structure, peer benchmarking on leverage, coverage, and liquidity ratios, and management commentary on strategy and capital allocation. The deck is updated annually for surveillance reviews and refreshed for new issuance that requires a deal-specific rating. Rating advisory bankers build these in coordination with the issuer's treasury and IR teams.
The recurring nature of these deliverables means a strong DCM analyst is not the analyst who can build the most complex one-off model. It is the analyst who can produce ten high-quality indicative pricing runs and three peer curve analyses in a morning, then turn around and build a clean rating agency slide pack by end of week. The rest of this guide assumes the candidate is preparing to produce these specific deliverables and walks through the underlying mechanics that make them possible.
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