US credit rating downgraded by Fitch.

BBC News — UK's credit rating downgraded by Moody's

Moody's, one of the major ratings agencies, downgraded the UK to an Aa2 rating from Aa1.

It said leaving the European Union was creating economic uncertainty at a time when the UK's debt reduction plans were already off course.

Downing Street said the firm's Brexit assessments were "outdated".

The other major agencies, Fitch and S&P, changed their ratings in 2016, with S&P cutting it two notches from AAA to AA, and Fitch lowering it from AA+ to AA.

Moody's said the government had "yielded to pressure and raised spending in several areas" including health and social care.

It says revenues were unlikely to compensate for the higher spending....

If anyone is outdated it is the credit rating agencies. The US has been a currency sovereign since the demise of the gold standard and floating rates.

Morons. Can't tell the difference between a sovereign currency issuer and currency users.

Credit rating agencies, in essence, rate a country on the strength of its economy - scoring governments or large companies on how likely they are to pay back their debt.

A currency sovereign can always meet its obligations in the currency it issue fully and on time. Default or delay is a voluntary decision taken politically rather than the result of financial constraint.

What is wrong with these people?

BBC News
UK's credit rating downgraded by Moody's

Sputnik — Fitch Ratings Revises Outlook for Russia to Stable

The outlook for Russia’s long-term financial risk rating has been revised from negative to stable and affirmed at ‘BBB-‘, Fitch Ratings said in a release on Friday.

Sputnik
Fitch Ratings Revises Outlook for Russia to Stable

There they go again. Jerks at S&P and Fitch downgrade Britain's credit rating.

Haven't we seen this movie before?

Remember when the idiots at S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011? I was on TV that morning and was pounding the table telling people to buy Treasuries.

Now you have the same idiot, S&P, plus a new idiot, Fitch, downgrading Britain's credit rating because of Brexit.

Hey you morons at the credit rating agencies...a sovereign nation that spends in its own currency and where all its obligations are denominated in that currency cannot become insolvent. There can never be an inability to pay its debts.

What idiots.

Buy gilts.

Anna Baraulina — Vladimir Putin Starts His Own Ratings Firm

Vladimir Putin’s homegrown credit-ratings firm is up and running and foreign competitors are already feeling the heat.

In the past three weeks, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. and Fitch Ratings Ltd. have said they plan to stop issuing local ratings rather than agree to having their Moscow branches regulated by the Russian government at the cost of breaking international sanctions. As the New York-based firms scale back, the venture known as ACRA is poised to fill the void when it starts publishing opinions in the second half.

Russia is squeezing the business of foreign-ratings assessors since downgrades it condemned as politically motivated last year pushed the sovereign below investment grade for the first time in more than a decade. The finance ministry and central bank plan to use ACRA to replace the so-called big three as their yardstick to measure credit quality of investments.…

Bloomberg Business
Vladimir Putin Starts His Own Ratings Firm
Anna Baraulina

William F. Engdahl — Russia and China: Watch Out Moody’s, Here We Come!

Over the past approximate quarter century of so-called economic globalization, Wall Street’s ability to be the home of the only dominant “global” rating agencies to bestow ratings on the credit-worthiness of the world has been one of the most effective weapons of financial warfare in the Wall Street arsenal. They rate nations as well as private corporations. Now an answer to the Moody’s-Standard & Poors-Fitch US rating monopoly is coming. Not from the EU, where it is long overdue. It is coming from Russia and China, as so many bold and challenging initiatives of late.…

Unlike the politically impotent EU, however, Russia today is not the Russia of the corrupt Yeltsin era of the late 1990’s. Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi have agreed to create their own international credit rating agency and it plans to open for business this year, 2015. 

The Universal Credit Rating Group (UCRG) plans to begin official independent ratigs in 2015 to challenge the Moody’s, S&P and Fitch ratings monopoly, according to RusRating Managing Director, Aleksandr Ovchinnikov. 

The new agency will be based in Hong Kong. Interestingly, there is a third equal partner to Russia and China in UCRG. In addition to China’s Dagon Credit Rating Agency, Russia’s RusRating the US-based independent Egan-Jones Ratings is partner in the new UCRG. Each member will hold an equal share in the venture, with an initial investment of $9 million. In effect, three already well-established national independent rating agencies form the new UCRG joint venture. It is a serious challenge to the New York Big Three monopoly. 

Egan-Jones Ratings Company, also known as EJR, founded in 1995 is a very interesting artner for Russia and China raters. It is unique among US nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs) for being wholly investor-supported, not client-financed, eliminating the gross conflict of interest of the Big Three. On April 5, 2012, Egan-Jones was the first rater to downgrade the credit ranking of the United States. In addition Egan-Jones was also the first to downgrade WorldCom and Enron. 

The UCRG was officially created in June 2013 and has since been finalizing its business structure. Ovchinnikov added that, “When the issue of creating an agency alternative to the ‘Big Three’ was raised, we in fact offered a project that was ready to be launched and was supported by the governments of Russia and China.” He explicitly pointed to the bias of the US Big Three raters to be overly “generous” to US and EU clients while being biased against developing or emerging countries such as the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. 

Now with an independent credit rating agency, a $100 billion BRICS Infrastructure Bank and strategic local currency agreements in place, Russia and China, Brics for Brics, are establishing the architecture to a genuine alternative to the destructive neo-colonial IMF and World Bank and the tyranny of the Wall Street dollar system. The year 2015 will indeed by interesting. Poor Mr. Soros might have to look for another job.

New Eastern Outlook
Russia and China: Watch Out Moody’s, Here We Come!
William F. Engdahl

See also, The Great Ratings Game: How Countries Become Creditworthy by David James Gill and Michael John Gill at Foreign Affairs (CFR).

Frances Coppola — The real meaning of Fitch's downgrade

The biggest risk to the UK economy, and therefore to the safety of UK sovereign debt, is the clowns running our political system. Heaven help Mark Carney. He has a simply horrible job to do.

Coppola Comment
The real meaning of Fitch's downgrade
Frances Coppola

Getting behind Fitch's reasoning of possible default of a currency sovereign. Is it the Lisbon Treaty?

Massive idiocy! Fitch downgrades Britain!!!

These moronic rating agencies never learn do they?

After S&P's laughable downgrade of the U.S. two years ago you would have though Fitch would have learned something, but, NO! They downgrade Britain.

Once again the rating agencies PROVE that they don't understand the distinction between a currency issuing nation like Britain and a currency using like Greece or, Italy or, Spain or, yes, even Germany!
Britain can never, ever, ever, ever, default on its debts because all its debts are denominated in Sterling!

Here's what Fitch stated as its rationale for the downgrade:

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The downgrade of the UK's sovereign ratings primarily reflects a weaker economic and fiscal outlook and hence the upward revision to Fitch's medium-term projections for UK budget deficits and government debt. Despite the loss of its 'AAA' status, the UK's extremely strong credit profile is reflected in its 'AA+' rating and the Stable Outlook.

- Fitch now forecasts that general government gross debt (GGGD) will peak at 101% of GDP in 2015-16 (equivalent to 86% of GDP for public sector net debt, PSND) and will only gradually decline from 2017-18. This compares with Fitch's previous projection for GGGD peaking at 97% and declining from 2016-17 and the 'AAA' median of around 50%.

- Fitch previously commented that failure to stabilise debt below 100% of GDP and place it on a firm downward path towards 90% of GDP over the medium term would likely trigger a rating downgrade. Despite the UK's strong fiscal financing flexibility underpinned by its own currency with reserve currency status and the long average maturity of public debt, the fiscal space to absorb further adverse economic and financial shocks is no longer consistent with a 'AAA' rating.

Check out the highlighted part. "gross debt to 100% of GDP." They must be using Reinhart and Rogoff, still, even though those two have just been shown to be charlatans!!! LOL!!! Unreal!!!

Fitch...YOU SUCK!!!!