...Sharp Outlook Turnaround: Of the 127 covered bond programmes rated with Outlooks by Fitch on its international scale at 1 December 2015, 94% had a Stable Outlook and 5.5% ¡ 15% of non-`AAA' programmes ¡ were on Positive Outlook. This is a marked contrast from previous years as roughly 20% of Fitch's covered bond ratings, mainly peripheral eurozone programmes, were on Negative Outlook between 2011 and 2014, due to the impact of the financial and eurozone debt crises on banks' and sovereigns' Issuer Default Ratings (IDR). Outlooks Mirror Bank Ratings: All covered bonds on Positive Outlook are issued by banks whose IDRs are also on Positive Outlook. Most rating Outlooks of covered bond issuers rated by Fitch were Stable (76%) or Positive (12%) as at 1 December 2015, following widespread downgrades of bank IDRs to their Viability Ratings (VR) in May 2015 related to Fitch's view that sovereign support could no longer be relied upon for banks in the EU, US and Switzerland due to substantial progress...
