Bankers were this (Friday) morning keeping their fingers crossed that US data due today would not unsettle the market. While issuers such as Aktia, ANZ National, Clydesdale and ING-DiBa will be roadshowing next week, others, including LF Hypotek, will be hoping to issue.

Unhelpful macroeconomic news from the US this week did not prevent five benchmarks in euros, but market participants said that they were concerned at how headlines from across the Atlantic had become a cause for concern just as fears about the European sovereign debt crisis had eased.

“It’s frustrating all this news, really,” said a syndicate official. “We had enough stop-go already with the European problems and then this US economic data comes along.

“There is a large pipeline for the market,” he added, “and not just in covered bonds. But they are all going to want to use the same windows when they appear.”

Non-farm payrolls are due this afternoon and bankers were also hoping that no bad news would emerge from Europe over the weekend. Moody’s downgraded Greek debt from B1 to Caa1 late Wednesday, but the market took this in its stride.

“The Greece downgrade is a bit of a non-event,” said another syndicate official, “given that the market has already taken it into consideration, with all the rumours. Clearly we’re moving sideways as we’re eyeing US jobs data that should give us a better picture of the market.”

Länsförsäkringar Hypotek has finished a roadshow and is said to be considering issuing next week. In mid-May the Swedish issuer mandated HSBC, Natixis, Nordea, UBS and UniCredit for a roadshow.

The deal will be LF Hypotek’s second euro benchmark; it has a Eu1bn March 2015 issue outstanding. The majority of its issuance has been in its domestic krona market, although it has also issued in Swiss francs several times.

The issuer is the fifth largest mortgage institution in Sweden and as of 31 March, LF had Skr82.4bn (Eu9.2bn) of covered bonds outstanding. Its Moody’s collateral score, at 3.8%, is the best of any Swedish programme. The parent, Länsförsäkringar Bank, is rated A2/A by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.

ANZ National will begin roadshowing a Eu5bn covered bond programme next week with ANZ, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas and UBS. The programme is the third set up by a New Zealand issuer, although only Bank of New Zealand has yet issued, with Westpac NZ having postponed a planned debut.

“The New Zealand covered bond market continues to expand as an additional source of funding to issuers with ANZ National Bank Limited’s programme being the third of its kind in the region,” said David Carroll, director in Fitch’s structured finance team.

Moody’s and Fitch today assigned triple-A ratings to the ANZ National (Int’l) Limited programme. Fitch rates ANZ National Bank Limited AA- and Moody’s, Aa3.

Moody’s cited the sponsor bank’s rating, the quality of the cover pool, minimum committed overcollateralisation of 11.11%, and structuring techniques mitigating linkage between the issuer and the covered bonds as factors in its rating. Fitch awarded the programme a Discontinuity Factor (D-Factor) of 30.3%.

The programme was assigned a collateral score of 7.4% by Moody’s. The latest weighted-average LTV of the cover pool was 50.6%, according to the rating agency.

ING-DiBa will be on the road with Commerzbank, HSBC, ING and UniCredit to roadshow its new mortgage Pfandbrief programme.

Moody’s has assigned a provisional rating of Aaa to ING-DiBa’s covered bonds. It said the rating takes into account the Aa3 rated credit of ING-DiBa, and the value of the cover pool in the event of issuer default, as well as a collateral score for the cover pool of 4%, a minimum overcollateralisation that is consistent with a target of 6.0%, and the legal framework of the German Pfandbrief Act.

UniCredit analysts noted that the 4% collateral score is the second best among German mortgage cover pools, only topped by Deutsche Postbank’s 2.8%. A Timely Payment Indicator (TPI) of “probable-high” was assigned to the programme.

Bernd Volk, head of covered bond research at Deutsche Bank, said that issuance from ING-DiBa might be initially limited, as it only has a cover pool of Eu630m and is deposit rich.

“However, it is noteworthy that given the strong brand name in Germany, the strong parent bank and a pool of exclusively German residential mortgages,” he added, “this seems fundamentally one of the strongest German Pfandbriefe. Pricing will probably be interesting to watch for other German banks with foreign parent banks.”

Finland’s Aktia Real Estate Mortgage Bank will also be marketing in the coming week, having mandated Crédit Agricole, JP Morgan, Nykredit and UniCredit for a roadshow. And National Australia Bank subsidiary Clydesdale Bank on Tuesday announced plans for a roadshow with Barclays, Deutsche Bank, NAB, Natixis and UniCredit.