Ireland tops performance, Spain mixed, Portugal lags

Irish covered bonds have outperformed all others in the recent past, reflecting increased certainty over the size of the country’s bank bail-out. This position contrasts with Portuguese covered bonds, which remain bogged down by the sovereign’s problems, despite the fact current weighted average LTVs are much lower. Though Spain has been one of this year’s success stories, selective cédulas have underperformed after multi-notch downgrades.