(FORTUNE Magazine) – Like jello, the $200 billion junk-bond market jiggled these past few weeks but didn't break. It was already trembling from the summer defaults of Resorts International and Southmark when Campeau, the Canadian parent of Allied Stores and Federated Department Stores, admitted it was so short of cash it could not pay for merchandise to put on the racks. Then Olympia & York, the Toronto real estate powerhouse owned by the Reichmann family, came to the rescue with a $250 million loan. Where will the next bad news come from? One study reveals both frailty and relative robustness among 20 of the largest junk-bond debtors. The chart above, compiled by McCarthy Crisanti & Maffei, a high-yield research service in New York, shows a melting pot: former investment-grade issuers that have slunk into junk on operating disasters (Long Island Lighting), as well as companies leveraged up from buyouts (Southland) and recapitalizations (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). The researchers looked at such vital financial signs as sources of emergency funds and the amount of interest expenses covered by cash flow. They rated the companies for default risk over the next two years -- assuming a recession in 1990, an assumption FORTUNE does not share -- and the next five years. A rating of one represents a 1% chance of default, while a seven packs a nerve- jangling 75% risk. Union Carbide, whose ratings straddle the Maginot line between investment- grade bonds and junk, is low on the default scale because it generates 4 1/ 2 times the cash needed for its annual interest payments. Allied and Federated, on the other hand, are flashing sevens for the next five years despite Campeau's recent reprieve. Also looking shaky is E-II Holdings, a spinoff from the old Beatrice. E-II, now controlled by retailing magnate Meshulam Riklis, has one of the group's lowest ratios of cash flow to interest expense. Some junk bonds have recovered from the Campeau crisis. But most are down a bit, partly because a lot of new offerings are hanging over the market. The prices shown on the table are for actively traded issues selected from each company's basket of bonds. Mark Walsh, Morgan Stanley's chief of high-yield research, sizes up the recent damage: ''There was no hurricane.''

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: MCCARTHY CRISANTI & MAFEI CAPTION: WHO'S ON TOP OF THE JUNK HEAP A default risk of one is safe; seven means a 75% chance of default.