There was no new issuance today (Monday) as the market opened in poor shape on the back of poor trading on Friday and Greece having this morning admitted it will not make deficit targets for this year, despite Deutsche Bank having reopened the senior market on Thursday.

“Generally the market is trading sideways today,” said a syndicate official, “and is fairly low in terms of flow.”

Another syndicate official deemed the market hopeless, with CDS wider.

“We are clearly in a very weak market,” he said.

Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt

Deutsche Bank reopened the senior unsecured market after three months of inactivity on Thursday, with a Eu1.5bn two year floating rate note priced at 98bp over Euribor.

“Clearly Deutsche reopened the market,” said the syndicate official, “but whether it has reopened the market for the broader population is harder to see.”

ABN Amro followed with a similar, Eu500m transaction on Friday, but he said it was not quite as successful.

“Deutsche was most definitely helpful and showed something can be done,” the syndicate official said. “But I think we’re just tightrope walking right now.

“Market sentiment from investors is extremely hard to gauge, which makes our job very difficult right now.”

Market participants said there could be a window for issuance tomorrow (Tuesday) or Wednesday, but that depended on conditions tomorrow.

“It’s a fairly short week in terms of potential window – we probably only really have a couple of days,” said another syndicate official. “We could see supply this week but that’s dependent on how tomorrow goes.”

He said a ECB governing council meeting on Thursday, which is expected to provide market participants more clarity on rumours of a second covered bond purchase programme, and a US jobs report release on Friday, have shortened available windows. There has also been a public holiday in Germany today.

“It’s quite a challenging window this week,” said a syndicate official.

Market participants said issuers with outstanding mandates – such as HSBC SFH, Sampo Housing Loan Bank, Terra BoligKreditt and Coventry Building Society – may choose to enter the market on Tuesday or Wednesday but it is equally likely they could hold off.

“Helaba was a rumour last week and it seemed like it was something that would come the following day,” said a syndicate official, “but then that went very quiet. It may be that it was mandated but then they saw how things went last week and decided to hold off.”

Another syndicate official was more negative about a window ahead of the ECB meeting Thursday.

“Look at the deals last week,” he said. “They didn’t go well.

“I think issuers are mostly sitting around waiting for the ECB, but I don’t that will change a lot,” he added “We’re going to have to see if the ECB does anything, or if they decide to concentrate on non-core.”

Another banker also said most deals would stay in the planning stages.

“I would say – given how we opened this morning – most of the projects in the pipeline will hold back this week,” he said. “I’m not aware of anyone who is looking to come to the market with any immediacy.”