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> I thought you might find this of interest.

Michael
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> Sovereign Ratings Outlook: September 2011
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> This is a new regular publication which aims to anticipate changes in sovereign credit ratings, and ratings outlook, for advanced economies.
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> We expect a series of sovereign ratings downgrades among euro area countries in the next 3-6 months, including Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus. We also expect Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to be downgraded further over the longer term (next 2-3 years). Over the next 2-3 years, we also expect that France and Austria are likely to be put on negative outlook, with Belgium at risk of a single notch downgrade.
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> Over the longer term (next 2-3 years), we also expect that the sovereign ratings of the US and Japan will be downgraded in response to adverse medium-term fiscal trends.
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> We do not currently expect the UK to be downgraded or put on negative outlook in the next few months or the longer term. But the UK is a relatively weak “AAA”, given the sharp rise in the fiscal deficit over recent years, surging public debts, large banking system, weak economic outlook and prospect that the deficit will overshoot official forecasts. The UK’s rating could be at risk if the coalition falls apart or eases up on the fiscal consolidation programme.
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> We regard the smaller European countries (Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway) as fairly solid AAAs for now, albeit with some concerns over the rising fiscal deficit, sluggish housing market and poor export performance in Denmark.
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> We do not expect any ratings upgrades among advanced economies, either over the next few months or the next 2-3 years.
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> Click here for the document
> Analyst(s) Michael Saunders (+44-20-7986-3299) , Mark Schofield (+44-20-7986-9224)
> Sector Economics
> Region Europe
> Global
> Asia Pacific
> Australia/New Zealand
> CEEMEA
> Japan
> Latin America
> North America
> Europe
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