Bangkok--5 Nov--Standard & Poor's
The pace of U.S. corporate nonfinancial downgrades has slowed over the past two months, while upgrades have ticked up, said an article published today by Standard & Poor's, titled "U.S. Nonfinancial Industries Credit Quality Review: October 2009 (Premium)."
In October, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded 24 companies and upgraded 23. In September, Standard & Poor's lowered its ratings on 22 issuers and raised its ratings on 18. This is a significant improvement over September 2008-August 2009, which saw 835 downgrades to only 115 upgrades.
"The large drop in downgrades from the prior months supports our belief that aggregate credit quality, although weak, is stabilizing," said Diane Vazza, head of Standard & Poor's Global Fixed Income Research Group. "Negative bias also has declined steadily over the past six months."
Negative bias is defined the proportion of entities with either a negative outlook or ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications.
In third-quarter 2009, almost all sectors saw fewer downgrades and more upgrades than in either of the previous two quarters.
This article is part of our premium Global Fixed Income Research content, which is available to premium subscribers to RatingsDirect, at www.ratingsdirect.com. Ratings information can also be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; under Ratings in the left navigation bar, select Find a Rating. Members of the media may request a copy of this report by contacting the media representative provided.
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