America’s risky corporate borrowers have been shut out of the bond market since Donald Trump’s tariff blitz, in a freeze that is reverberating across Wall Street and which threatens a tentative rebound in dealmaking.
Lowly-rated companies have failed to sell any debt in the $1.4tn US high-yield bond market since Trump unleashed market turmoil and raised fears of a US recession with the wave of tariffs he announced earlier this month.
The freezing of the junk bond market threatens to hit private equity firms that frequently rely on it to help fund their takeovers. It also raises the risk for banks that provide short-term loans for such deals before buyout firms then secure longer-term financing in the bond market.