Financial institutions have been the most active issuers this week and were among the most active securities traded in the secondary market on Friday afternoon, according to MarketAxess.

More than half of the week's 13 deals sized over $1 billion were issued by financial institutions and insurers, according to data provider Dealogic, and most priced tighter than where guidance had been set.

No new issuers sold bonds in the high-grade market Friday, a lull in the rush of issuance over the past few weeks. But despite the day's hiatus, the $31.97 billion brought to market overall this week was the highest weekly volume since the beginning of January.

The poorly received employment report on Friday--it showed that the economy lost 131,000 jobs in July--is unlikely to slow the momentum of U.S. high-grade issuance, said Jonathan Duensing, head of corporate credit at Smith Breeden Associates, an asset-management firm based in Durham, N.C.

"We've seen some widening in corporate spreads today, but overall, the technicals support continued demand," he said.

On Monday, Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse issued $3 billion and $2 billion, respectively, while life insurance giant Metlife Inc. sold $3 billion in a three-part deal on Tuesday to help pay for its acquisition of American Life Insurance Co.

Among so-called Yankee-bond issuers--non-domestic borrowers selling bonds in U.S. dollars--ANZ National (International) Ltd. sold $1 billion in five-year senior notes on Tuesday, while Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI) entered the market Wednesday with $1 billion in five-year notes. On Thursday, two more banks jumped on the bandwagon, with HSBC selling $3.25 billion and UBS AG (USA) selling $1.5 billion.

Financial institutions also dominated secondary trading on Friday. Bonds of the major U.S. investment banks tracked the stock market lower because of the worse-than-expected payroll numbers and headlines about Goldman Sachs and others already moving to wind down or restructure their proprietary trading units amid pending regulation.

Goldman Sachs' 6% June 2020 bonds traded 0.07 percentage points wider than Thursday's closing levels to 2.23 percentage points, for a yield of 5.061% instead of 5.058%; Morgan Stanley's 5.5% July 2020 traded 0.1 wider to 2.63 percentage points; JPMorgan's 4.4% July 2020s traded 0.1 wider to 1.62; and Citigroup's 6% February 2012 and December 2013 bonds fell 0.2 and 0.12, respectively, to 1.60 and 2.70.

"Whenever the equity market goes down, banks are really correlated to that," one trader said.

The disappointing jobs data also weighed on the CDX North American Investment Grade Index, a key measure of credit investor sentiment. The index deteriorated to 104.5 basis points by 2:30 p.m. EDT, 2.93 basis points worse than Thursday's close, according to Markit data. It was at 101.11 basis points before the employment report.

-By Katy Burne, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-3084; katy.burne@dowjones.com