The domestic corporate bond market has had one of the weakest starts to a year for quite some time.In recent years, the months of January and February have been reasonably strong months for issuance, with at least one month seeing issuance totalling around A$12 billion. In 2011 both months came in around this level to achieve total issuance of $24.6 billion.Total issuance in January and February this year is not going to come anywhere near that and at the moment looks like it might struggle to reach just A$12 billion, all up. Issuance in January was a reasonable $8.7 billion but to date, February has reached only $1.3 billion.We need to go back to 2006 see a worse start to a year. But to be fair, the market was not as developed then as it is now.The performance of the domestic market over the first six weeks of 2016 and probably through to the end of February is comparable with the time of the first taper tantrum in 2013, when the US Federal Reserve started tapering one of its quantitative easing programs and the bond market responded badly.May 2013 saw $10.5 billion of bonds issued in the domestic market.The only issuance seen in the wholesale market last week was the opening of a new $60 million August 2026 line by Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg Foerderbank (rated AAA). The bonds were sold at a margin of 69.5 basis points over commonwealth government securities and will yield 3.085 per cent.        FIIG Securities finalised its latest unlisted, unrated bond issue. Home builder Impact Group Australia sold $45 million of five-year bonds at a yield of 8.5 per cent. ANZ (rated AA-) was the only issuer in international markets. On Friday it sold JPY20 billion of subordinated tier two bonds with a ten-year term to maturity and no early call. The notes will yield 1.183 per cent and convert to about $250 million.