MARKET CURRENTS
real-time news and commentary for investors

Monday, February 13, 6:06 PM Moody's downgrades the sovereign debt of Spain by two notches, and the debt of Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Malta by one notch. In addition, Moody's outlooks for France, the U.K., and Austria are being revised to negative, though each country is maintaining its A3 rating for now.

Share this page

Track new comments on this story

This news story has 12 comments:

Josh Krause Comments (1003)

So I could go with an ironic "Bullish!" but that is overdone.

Instead...

Bad sales data along with this should be a red open that will be bought up.

13 Feb, 06:08 PM Reply Like

Patrick Chu Comments (42)

The same thing we do every day: open down, buy it up through the close. Or, gap up, pull it down in the morning, buy it up through the close.

13 Feb, 06:38 PM Reply Like

tigersam Comments (1605)

My first take is, just get rid of these ratings agencies. Second is time to buy European stocks.

13 Feb, 06:10 PM Reply Like

Michael Clark Comments (6563)

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

The rating agencies didn't do their job rigorously during the bubble phase. Now they try to do their job and its time to get rid of them? If they had been independent and doing their job during the housing bubbles, then we would have avoided much of this mess. Your solution is to get rid of them?

14 Feb, 04:18 AM Reply Like

mitrado Comments (310)

That's right Michael!

For the last 30 years, Portuguese people elected the same 2 corrupted parties, over and over again... and now we don't want to get downgraded!?
Now we accuse the Rating agencies of being evil and attacking us for no reason?
In my opinion, it's about time people in this country start paying for their bad decisions. They don't like it? Too bad, we are in a democracy and this was the people's choice.
Now everyone who supported those corrupted politicians for so long must shut the hell up and deal with the consequences of their actions.

Our politicians did everything wrong... unfortunately, we deserve this rating, which by the way, means Portugal is a speculative place to invest... and that is the saddest truth.

I, for one, will keep investing in other places... I won't touch Portuguese bonds or stocks, that's for sure.

14 Feb, 04:37 AM Reply Like

Andresrue Comments (82)

The word of God as delivered by another ratings agency... Does anyone still pay attention to what these guys have to say? These are the same guys who were rating subprime CDOs as triple-As. Besides, at this stage of the game, talk about a ratings agency behaving like a "leading market indicator" (!!!) How do these guys earn their pay, anyways? Ooops, straight from the pockets of the issuers whose debt they grade, of course!

13 Feb, 06:21 PM Reply Like

Hitesh Patel Comments (233)

Is their anyone left who believes that these ratings are legit, if they do i have a bridge i'm looking to unload

13 Feb, 07:14 PM Reply Like

Venerability Comments (1936)

Oh, No!

Not Malta!

I have 99 percent of my portfolio in Malta!

13 Feb, 08:01 PM Reply Like

Poor Texan Comments (3172)

If Moody's downgrades, it must have happened some months ago.

13 Feb, 09:07 PM Reply Like

TomasViewPoint Comments (2365)

What did these guys just learn that led them to downgrade these countries? The level of scrutiny on Europe has been unrelenting for some time and all of a sudden Moodys has an epiphany?

Moodys is worthless.

14 Feb, 12:30 AM Reply Like