Standard & Poor’s Puts ‘Negative’ Outlook on U.S. Rating

[Political Junky]

Standard & Poor’s Puts ‘Negative’ Outlook on U.S. Rating - Businessweek

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Standard & Poor’s put the U.S. government on notice that it risks losing its AAA credit rating unless policy makers agree on a plan by 2013 to reduce budget deficits and the national debt.

“If an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation does not begin by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns,” New York-based S&P said today in a report that maintained its top rating on U.S. long-term debt while lowering the outlook to “negative” for the first time.
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[KissMy]

Standard & Poor's downgraded the US credit rating & Obama has the Justice Department Investigating Standard & Poor's for downgrading the US credit rating & Standard & Poor's president Deven Sharma was forced to step down.

Obama did the same thing to DSK of the IMF for downgrading the US credit rating. Obama had his SEIU footsoldier Nafissatou Diallo set-up DSK. Because DSK was downgrading the US credit rating at the IMF so Obama had him replaced with Christine LaGarde. The day after Christine LaGarde took control of the IMF the NY prosecutor announced that the case against DSK fell apart & let DSK go.

DSK's accuser Nafissatou Diallo committed tax fraud by claiming a fictitious daughter as a dependent on her tax returns. She lied on her asylum application & lied to a grand jury under oath. Why is she not in jail?

She is a criminal yet Obama is protecting her!!!

The family explained that Nafissatou Diallo is in hiding with NYPD protection to protect her from the media. She presently has a lawyer. The attorney general’s office in Manhattan, contacted by SlateAfrique, refused to confirm the identity of Nafissatou Diallo.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

The deeper in debt, our marks will continue to drop. There is no good ending with endless spending.

 

[Claudette]

Is she a Dem??

 

[waltky]

Another downgrade comin'?...

U.S. rating likely to be downgraded again: Merrill
Sun Oct 23,`11 – The United States will likely suffer the loss of its triple-A credit rating from another major rating agency by the end of this year due to concerns over the deficit, Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecasts.

The trigger would be a likely failure by Congress to agree on a credible long-term plan to cut the U.S. deficit, the bank said in a research note published on Friday. A second downgrade -- either from Moody's or Fitch -- would follow Standard & Poor's downgrade in August on concerns about the government's budget deficit and rising debt burden. A second loss of the country's top credit rating would be an additional blow to the sluggish U.S. economy, Merrill said. "The credit rating agencies have strongly suggested that further rating cuts are likely if Congress does not come up with a credible long-run plan" to cut the deficit, Merrill's North American economist, Ethan Harris, wrote in the report. "Hence, we expect at least one credit downgrade in late November or early December when the super committee crashes," he added.

The bipartisan congressional committee formed to address the deficit -- known as the "super committee" -- needs to break an impasse between Republicans and Democrats in order to reach a deal to reduce the U.S. deficit by at least $1.2 trillion by November 23. If a majority of the 12-member committee fails to agree on a plan, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts will be triggered, beginning in 2013. Those automatic cuts, mostly in discretionary spending, would weigh further on a fragile U.S. economy, Merrill said. In the same report, the bank reduced its 2012 and 2013 growth forecasts for the United States to 1.8 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively. If there were a downgrade, it was not clear which ratings agency would move first.

Moody's Investors Service, which has a negative outlook on the United States's Aaa rating, said it is looking at several other factors, including the results of presidential elections and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts late in 2012, to decide on the rating. "It's not that we're waiting just for this committee to decide on the rating," Steven Hess, Moody's lead analyst for the United States, told Reuters in an interview last week. Failure by the committee to come up with an agreement, he said, "would be negative information but it is not decisive in our view about the rating." To be sure, Hess did not rule out the possibility of an early move on U.S. ratings if the country's economy slips into recession. So far, however, the economic performance "is certainly not super positive but not a disaster either," he said.

Fitch Ratings, on the other hand, still has a stable outlook on its AAA rating on the United States, meaning it is more likely to revise that outlook to negative before actually downgrading the rating. In its latest report on the United States, Fitch says a "negative rating action," which could be only an outlook revision, could result from a weaker-than-expected economic recovery or by failure by the bipartisan committee to reach agreement on at least $1.2 billion in deficit-reduction measures.

Source

 

[waltky]

Banks get downgrade from S&P...

S&P downgrades credit rating of major banks
29 November 2011 - S&P's move hit the share prices of US banks

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the long-term credit grades of a string of major financial firms. Wall Street titans Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, along with Barclays, HSBC, and some firms in Germany and France were affected. Downgrades can increase banks' borrowing costs and put further pressure on their shaky finances. However, it upgraded ratings on two Chinese banks, Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp. S&P said its move reflects new criteria for banks, based on changes in market trends and government support.

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup had long-term ratings downgraded to A- from A. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, HSBC, Commerzbank, and UBS also had ratings cut by one notch, according to S&P's statement. S&P's move hit the shares of US banks in after-hours trading on Wall Street, with Goldman Sachs down 1% Morgan Stanley down 1.7%. Ratings for several big European banks, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche, ING and Societe Generale were unchanged.

Low risk

The upgrade for the Chinese banks has come at a time when there have been increased concerns about the health of the country's banking sector. Chinese banks lent out record sums of money in the past few years in a bid to ensure a healthy pace of growth for the economy during the global financial crisis. However, a slowdown in global economy has led to concerns about China's growth, prompting fears about an increase in bad debts at the banks. Analysts said while the Chinese banks were prone to the risk of accumulating bad debt, they still remain a safe bet.

"The key factor is that they are largely government owned, that means the risk to shareholders of these banks is quite low," Stephen Joske of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing told the BBC. Mr Joske added that the Chinese government's was in a strong financial position to help its banks, should it need to step in. "If there were to be a run on domestic banks, the authorities have plenty of resources to bail them out," he said.

BBC News - S&P downgrades credit rating of major banks

 

[kyzr]

We need to cut $4T from the Budget or we're toast. Its easy to do, but the DC whores won't cut anything.

I hope we have another "Super Committee" the next time they can't agree to raise the Debt Limit, to cut more automatically.

 

[Rocko]

Fitch did too.

S & P also downgraded a ton of banks. It's going to be a treacherous market out there.