Quiet, shortened pre-holiday session closes junk primary’s August, secondary stilled as well

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Aug. 29 – August came to an end in Junkbondland on Friday not with a bang, nor even with a whimper – but more like a snore.

Many market participants were not even in for what promised to be a short and very uneventful session ahead of the long Labor Day holiday weekend, and which did not disappoint. Others were in for just a few hours at the most, with most desks deserted, phones unanswered and Bloomberg terminal red lights displayed long before the market’s usual afternoon closing time.

Against that backdrop, to nobody’s surprise, the junk bond primary market finished the last day of the month in pretty much the same rut it had been in for the rest of the last two weeks, with no pricings during the late-summer pre-holiday lull; none had been expected.

With the primary asleep, secondary traders said Friday that their own market was not much better, with overall light volumes and no names really standing out. Even the week’s busiest credit – bankrupt silicon and specialty chemical manufacturer Momentive Performance Materials, Inc. – saw only a small fraction of the heavy volumes it racked up earlier in the week.

Statistical indicators of junk market performance remained mixed on Friday for a fourth consecutive session. They were also mixed versus where they had finished the previous Friday for the first time after three straight weeks of having been higher across the board.

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