S&P Lives Up To Downgrades Of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, & Portugal

Standard & Poor’s managed to live up to the rumor mill’s expectations on this Friday the 13th.  S&P has now formally downgraded several European nations’ sovereign credit ratings. France and Austria have both lost their prized Triple-A rating from S&P, and the new inbvestment-grade ratings are both at AA+.  Elsewhere, the PIIGS got their share of cuts again.  S&P handed out downgrades to the nations:

• Spain is “A” rated
• Italy is now rated BBB+
• Portugal was downgraded to Junk with a “BB” rating

It was back in early December that S&P put these nations on CreditWatch Negative. This news was telegraphed throughout the trading day and was largely responsible for the market sell-off today.

JON C. OGG