Sales of U.S. corporate bonds plummeted 79 percent this week as borrowers stood on the sidelines with investment-grade buyers poised for their first monthly losses since March.

A $1.1 billion offering of perpetual preferred shares by JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. lender by assets, and a similarly sized issue of 30-year bonds by Illinois Tool Works Inc. led $7.5 billion of offerings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with $35.5 billion last week and $7.1 billion in the corresponding period last year.

"It's a dramatic slowdown versus the last couple of weeks," Simon Mayes, head of the financial institutions group syndicate at BNP Paribas SA in New York, said in a telephone interview. "It's been a much busier August than previous Augusts, but it was very much concentrated in the first couple of weeks."

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