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’See, ratings do matter
Note three year Portugese paper on Monday…
The yield topped 18 per cent just before pixel-time, with Portuguese sovereign debt generally suffering after the S&P downgrade on Friday.
Portugal has seen worse.
A-A-A… staying alive, staying alive
How significant is the downgrade of France by Standard & Poor’s?
According to some commenters, like the WSJ’s Simon Nixon, not that significant.
But one market which could very well feel an impact it turns out is the repo market.
RBS on those S&P downgrades
A quick summary of Jacques Cailloux’s thinking on the Euro sovereign debt downgrades — Caillou being chief european economist at RBS…
The market implications of the ratings review are worse than a whole downgrade of the region owing to the increased political wrangling,
A sub-optimal solution to the Euromess [updated]
Policy changes the ECB announced last week will help banks directly and governments indirectly. But the EU fell short on every element of a comprehensive deal. On Friday, investors reacted positively to what was sold to them as a “fiscal compact”.
And the G20 total returns winner is…
Something to take G20 Cannes delegates’ minds off Greece…
How’s this for evidence that the emerging markets growth story is overblown? Of all the G20 countries, the US would have given you the greatest equity returns over the past year,
S&P downgrades Spain to AA- from AA
It’s midnight in Madrid, and that — obviously — calls for an S&P downgrade of the Spanish sovereign to AA- from AA.
Full text below. It’s all pretty standard analysis, frankly, so go back to bed Europe…
S&P takes away (CDO) diversification candy
Some very interesting proposed changes to Standard & Poor’s rating methodology for CDOs made of stuff like ABS, in the following request for comment, we think:
Standard & Poor’s Ratings
S&P and Fitch downgrade Spanish banks
Where the sovereign goes, the banks follow. (And vice-versa, of course.)
Fitch and S&P downgraded a slew of Spanish banks on Tuesday evening. The rating rationales are pasted below.
There’s probably little new information here to FT Alphaville readers but a few things caught our eye and we’ve highlighted the excerpts accordingly.
S&P affirms the UK’s AAA
Does this look like grounds for a negative or a stable outlook on that affirmation, do you think? (Via S&P’s statement — released just as Chancellor George Osborne took to the stage at the Conservative party conference):
S&P downgrades Italy
Una sgradita sorpresa:
On Sept. 19, 2011, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its unsolicited long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Italy to ‘A/A-1′ from ‘A+/A-1+’.
More on the Fitch reaffirmation
We were as relieved as anyone that Fitch, as expected, declined to follow S&P’s lead on Tuesday, but here’s a chart that nevertheless gave us something to ponder:
It shows the results of a sensitivity analysis tucked away near the back of Fitch’s full report,
Cyprus debt placed on DeathWatch negative by S&P
Okay, we mean CreditWatch negative. But if US officials want to see a truly damning statement out of Standard & Poor’s they’d be minded to check out its Friday rationale for placing Cyprus sovereign credit ratings on CreditWatch negative.
Where one rating agency goes…
… another fears to tread (at least for the time being).
(Nota bene – split ratings should mean fewer knock on effects.)
What *will* you do, S&P?
As has been noted everywhere, the debt deal approved by the US House of Representatives on Monday night holds little promise of achieving the $4,000bn in spending cuts that ratings agencies are thought to be wanting.