As S&P Warns About Portugal and Greece... (PT, NBG)

Are the credit ratings agencies still viable?  If you can believe it, there is a new round of warnings for credit rating downgrades in the lands of the PIIGS.  As if you didn’t know that things were bad there… Standard & Poor’s has warned that both Portugal and Greece could see another credit rating cut in the next couple of months.

S&P maintained its “A-” rating for Portugal and kept its “BB+” rating on Greece but both sovereign nations are on credit watch with negative implications.  The new rating outlook is after reviewing the key features of terms in the European bailout.

Portugal Telecom SGPS SA (NYSE: PT) and National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) are two of the ADRs that trade here in America for each nation.  No major price changes have been seen so far as Portugal Telecom is trading down $0.02 in early indications for the ADRs and National Bank of Greece is up marginally.

Maybe the argument should be that no current downgrade is actually good news.  Or less-bad news, which is also “good” considering where the reference is.

JON C. OGG