S&P's CreditWeek: March 14, 2007
Global Economic Outlook: All Systems Go For A Fourth Year Of Solid Growth: The world economy is poised to maintain a healthy rate of expansion in 2007, with an unprecedented fourth consecutive year of more than 4% growth likely, in large part because of China, India, and the U.S. Of course, any prolonged deceleration in the U.S., which accounts for more than one-fifth of global GDP and is the world's biggest importer, would naturally curb growth globally. ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 7, 2007
India: Back In Investment Grade After 16 Years: On Jan. 30, 2007, Standard & Poor's raised its sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of India to 'BBB-/A-3'. The upgrade to investment grade reflects the country's strong economic prospects and external balance sheet, and its deep capital market, which supports a weak, but improving, fiscal position.
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 28, 2007
A World Of Change For Financial Markets: In the 25 years since Standard & Poor's published its first issue of CreditWeek, the U.S. financial markets-and the bond market, in particular-have changed dramatically. The economy and financial markets have been largely deregulated. Financial instruments have multiplied, with far more alternatives now available for both issuers and buyers. Even the buyers of securities have changed.
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 21, 2007
Fluctuating Oil Prices: Why The Impact Has So Far Been Minimal: Rising oil prices often fuel worries about the economy, but now falling prices are generating optimism. Since reaching a peak of $78 a barrel last summer, prices have dropped more than 35%. Unseasonably warm weather, stronger-than-expected supply, and weaker demand are among the reasons for the decline.
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 14, 2007
Despite The Dot-Com Crash, E-Commerce Keeps Booming: The Internet has had a wild ride since taking off in the 1990s and creating the infamous dot-com bubble. But the Internet itself more than survived. Indeed, it has continued to expand and transform the economy, especially in business-to-business commerce, retailing, and advertising. Electronic commerce in its many forms has quickly become a fixture in the 21st century, as American consumers and investors use the ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 7, 2007
Booming M&A Drive Global Credit Quality Slide: Hyperliquidity, stoked by the heightened appetite for risk in global credit markets, appears ready to continue through 2007. With many borrowers, investors, and private-equity players growing increasingly comfortable with aggressive leverage, the current financial environment is powering a wave of leveraged M&A that likely will again reach record highs. Still, there will be a downside: Standard & Poor's exp...
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 31, 2007
IFRS After Transition: What's In Store For Standard & Poor's Credit Analysis?: The transition to IFRS has been remarkably smooth for European companies, as year-end 2005 accounts were issued during 2006 without significant delay. Furthermore, none of the accounting changes resulting from the IFRS transition single-handedly caused a change in ratings, as Standard & Poor's assessment of underlying credit risk has not been significantly affected. Nevertheless,...
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 24, 2007
Which Way For Russia's Sovereign Rating: Road To Riches Or Slippery Slope: Russians elect a new president next year, opening the way for big uncertainties that could weaken creditworthiness and sap current strong growth. The new wealth has trickled down very unevenly, but Russians consumers are enjoying the growth spurt, while an emerging credit culture has sparked rapid expansion in banking and securitization.
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 17, 2007
Liquidity Planning A Necessity For U.S. Securities Firms: Standard & Poor's is frequently asked by investors and regulators what we think the impact of a systemic liquidity crisis would be on the large financial institutions. We believe that adequate liquidity planning at U.S. securities firms includes preparation for extreme marketwide liquidity events, such as was experienced in the financial markets in the fall of 1998, as well as firm-specific liquidity eve...
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 10, 2007
Recovery Ratings Three Years On: Benign Leveraged Market Or Investor Amnesia?: The leveraged debt markets, dominated by continuing growth of the syndicated loans in the U.S. and Europe, have wrapped up the most successful year in history, by most commercial standards. But from a credit perspective, the very success of the current market raises a striking and potentially troubling pattern: credit spreads at the lower end of the rating spectrum remain flat or declini...
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 3, 2007
The Rise Of 'B' Rated Companies And Their Staying Power As An Asset Class: We are currently in a period of seeing large numbers of 'B' category credits trying to tap the bank loan and bond markets. Perhaps the major characteristic of 'B' rated credits over the past 30 years is that while they may come and go on an individual basis, they have shown some real staying power collectively as an asset class.
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S&P's CreditWeek: December 20, 2006
Corporate Governance-Still An Area Of Investor And Public Policy Concern: In 2006, corporate governance continued to affect investor interests and influence the public policy dialogue globally, and is likely to remain an area of relevance and concern in 2007. While 2006 has not produced a major corporate scandal, the revelation of past practices of option backdating ranked as one of the highest-profile governance events, affecting many companies in the U.S., and o...
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S&P's CreditWeek: December 13, 2006
The 2007 U.S. Economic Outlook: What Could Go Wrong?: If everything goes right in 2007, Standard & Poor's expects the U.S. economy to slow, but not precipitously. Our forecast is for growth to slide to 2.3% from 3.3% in 2006. Inflation will drop gradually from its current level, while the unemployment rate creeps upward toward 5% from 4.4% now.
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S&P's CreditWeek: December 6, 2006
Criteria: Request For Comment: Revisions In The Risk-Based Insurance Capital Model?: The model seeks to determine the amount of capital that is necessary to cover losses at varying confidence intervals from disparate risks in excess of reserves over the expected life of a company's portfolio. In the revised model, each risk variable is stressed using confidence levels that Standard & Poor's deems appropriate given the company's targeted rating category and our ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: November 29, 2006
Will The Economy Have A Holiday Gift For U.S. Consumers?: The economic uncertainties going into the holiday shopping season are easy to name: rising interest rates and a housing slump in addition to ongoing concerns about unrest in the Middle East and the war in Iraq. Yet Standard & Poor's expects these worries to have little tangible effect on consumer spending during the last months of 2006. We believe that as the year winds down, spending will be equal to, o...
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S&P's CreditWeek: November 22, 2006
A Closer Look At Industrials Ratings Methodology: The rating methodology used by Standard & Poor's focuses on fundamental analysis. Not surprisingly, our conceptual model hasn't changed significantly, but there have been some shifts over time that reflect greater complexity and volatility. Today's ratings analysis puts a lot more emphasis on cash flow and liquidity than in the past.
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S&P's CreditWeek: November 15, 2006
The Islamic Financial Industry Comes Of Age: Double-digit growth rates for Sharia-compliant assets over the past decade have naturally driven Islamic financiers to look beyond historical boundaries to explore new territories, both within and outside the Arab world. The size of global Sharia-compliant assets is estimated today at up to $400 billion, whereas Standard & Poor's Ratings Services believes the potential market for Islamic financial services to be clos...
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S&P's CreditWeek: November 8, 2006
Can Global Banking's Golden Age Continue?: The global financial sector is in robust health. As for global investment banking, the past three years have been among the best in the industry's history. We believe that structural improvements-resulting from global consolidation, improved risk management processes, tightening of costs, and better regulation-position the industry well to ride out a number of future risk scenarios.
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S&P's CreditWeek: November 1, 2006
For TV, The Future Is Now-And It's On The Net: The world of television is undergoing rapid change. The threat is from the same source, the Internet, which promises to deliver a virtual programming universe to consumers anytime, anywhere. However, convergence in telecommunications and the Internet is coming and, in 2007, the major electronics makers will roll out new Net-ready TV sets, equipped with storage and computing power to rival current PCs.
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S&P's CreditWeek: October 25th, 2006
Will Housing's Fall Make The Economy Tumble?: It had to happen sometime. And it now appears that the housing market topped out during the summer of 2006. Incoming data on housing sales and starts clearly show that fewer homes are being sold, and prices are leveling out. Earlier this year, Standard & Poor's was surprised because housing remained stronger than we had expected. Then the drop during the summer was very sudden. So far, though, it appears that the sl...
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S&P's CreditWeek: October 18th, 2006
The Differing Role Of Quantitative Analytics In Credit And Equity Ratings: It stands to reason that quantitative methods are becoming an increasingly important part of financial modeling. After all, the primary purpose for using mathematical models in financial analysis is to evaluate risk so as to maximize returns on investments. Modern portfolio theory actually goes back more than 50 years, and Standard & Poor's has been developing quantitative models for man...
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S&P's CreditWeek: October 11th, 2006
China's Top Companies: Economy Buzzing, But Earnings Growth Loses Sting: China's top 200 companies reported strong but slowing earnings growth in 2005. The top performers maintained their pricing power in an economy that revved up 9.5% last year due to rapid growth in fixed asset investments, a high savings rate, and a major inflow of foreign direct investment.
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S&P's CreditWeek: October 4th, 2006
Is Health Care Bad For Our Financial Health?: The U.S. spends more of its GDP on health care than any other major country, and the percentage is rising rapidly. Health care hit 15% of GDP in 2005, up from 10% a decade ago and 5% in the 1960s. If the current trend continues, health care spending will reach 35% of GDP and 36% of federal outlays (versus 20% today) in 2040 as the ranks of retirees swell and the percentage of the population covered by Medicare increases...
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S&P's CreditWeek: September 27th, 2006
Political Risk In The Global Oil Industry Comes In Several Flavors: It's critical, when determining an energy producer's credit health, to assess the political threats to production and future investment in the largest oil producing countries. This can be a difficult task: There are many forms of political risk, and the key political drivers among the major oil producing nations vary greatly. Different oil companies have more concentration-and thus more risk-than ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: September 20th, 2006
In This Issue: Mexico: Taking Stock Of Change: The narrow margin of Felipe Calderon's victory, and the political challenges he will continue to face from his closest electoral opponent, could make it difficult for the new Administration to implement its policy agenda. However, the uncertainty on the political front is balanced by Mexico's good economic performance in 2006 and its track record of macroeconomic stability, providing a favorable context for a ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: September 13th, 2006
In This Issue: Developing Countries Are Actually Developing: The healthy world economy has created a boom in many developing countries. After decades during which the term "developing country" was a euphemism, growth has increased in most of the world's poorer economies and, as a group, at a rate that's far outpacing the developed world. Overall world growth was 4.8% last year and Standard & Poor's expects it to be 4.9% in 2006.
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S&P's CreditWeek: September 6th, 2006
In This Issue: Brazil Poised To Shape Its Future As Elections Loom: In the four years since the last presidential election in 2002, Brazil has made remarkable progress. The financial turmoil of that year's second half had extremely negative implications for credit quality across the spectrum. Since the last election, however, the government's continuation of sound macroeconomic policies resulted in reduced fiscal and external vulnerabilities, and four year...
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S&P's CreditWeek: August 30th, 2006
In This Issue: The Global Economic Outlook In 2006: Another Year Of Leaping Hurdles?: If you had asked a year ago whether the world economy could prosper with oil prices at sustained levels of $70 a barrel or more, while central bankers in the developed nations kept pushing interest rates higher, the answer from investors and economists worldwide might well have been a quick and easy, "No." Yet that obvious outcome has not been the case. Despite those seemi...
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S&P's CreditWeek: August 23rd, 2006
In This Issue: Asia-Pacific Insurance: A Comparative Analysis Of Industry Risk 2006-2007: In its annual review of the economic and industry risk profiles of 14 Asia-Pacific region insurance markets, Standard & Poor's concluded that the risk profiles of life and non-life sectors in some countries improved in 2006. There have been ongoing improvements in several key economic and industry factors underpinning the financial strengths of the region's insuran...
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S&P's CreditWeek: August 16th, 2006
In This Issue: Top 10 Recent Stock-Boosting Initiatives: As Shareholders Gain, Creditors Often Lose: Over the past few years, institutional investors dissatisfied with the stock price or day-to-day management of the companies in which they invest have increasingly sought to bolster shareholder returns. Their voices are being heard. Whether responding to the pressure of private equity groups, dissident shareholder slates of directors, or unhappy money manage...
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S&P's CreditWeek: August 9th, 2006
In This Issue: Conflict In The Mideast: Four Oil Supply Scenarios: If anything underscores how geopolitical forces have played havoc with oil prices, it's the latest armed conflict in the Middle East. Whether the current conflict causes a recession depends mostly on how big the impact on oil supplies and prices becomes. We've looked at four scenarios, but even worse cases, or combinations of the problems discussed, are also possible.
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S&P's CreditWeek: August 2nd, 2006
In This Issue: Taiwan Top 50 Corporates: Tech To Trump Old Economy In 2006: The aggregate net income of Taiwan's top 50 corporates slumped 17% year on year to New Taiwan dollar 620.6 billion last year, mainly due to a weaker overall erformance from Taiwan's high-tech sectors, especially thin film transistor-liquid crystal display and semiconductor companies, as a result of cyclical industry conditions and less favorable pricing.
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S&P's CreditWeek: July 26th, 2006
In This Issue: Never Have So Many Owed So Much: It's difficult to believe that Americans can borrow any more, but we have learned not to underrate the willingness of consumers to borrow, or of banks to continue lending them, the money. The housing sector, however, is showing signs of fatigue, as higher mortgage rates finally seem to be eating into sales and prices. Car sales may be slowing, which is no surprise, given the high cost of filling them up. Howev...
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S&P's CreditWeek: July 19th, 2006
In This Issue: Emerging Trends In Asian Real Estate: Standard & Poor's is seeing significant changes in Asia's real estate markets due to the emergence of real estate investment trusts (REITs), growing urbanization, the increasing presence of foreign institutional investors, and the opening-up of the real estate sector in China. Asia is home to half the world's population, but real estate ownership per capita is among the lowest globally.
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S&P's CreditWeek: July 12th, 2006
In This Issue: Rapid Rise In Interest Rates Or Renminbi Could Stretch China's Embryonic Banking System: The vulnerability of China's fledgling banking system is increasing as a result of rapid credit expansion. This reflects high economic and industry risk in the sector, despite improvements in its fundamentals in the past few years.
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S&P's CreditWeek: July 5th, 2006
In This Issue: A Long, Slow Drive Away From Oil: In an energy climate so full of surprises, it is especially difficult to fathom when fear of a world without oil will light a flame under demand for alternative fuels or what the spark will be. To answer that question, Standard & Poor's needs to know how high oil prices will go-and by when. Middle East uncertainties make that almost impossible to predict, especially in the short run. But we can at least t...
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S&P's CreditWeek: June 28th, 2006
In This Issue: Avoiding The Hydrocarbon Habit Is Vital For Sovereign Ratings On Russia: Russia can avoid being vulnerable to swings in hydrocarbon prices by pursuing policies to mitigate the potential negative effects of an oil price fall. This objective can be achieved through a tight fiscal stance and efforts to bolster the local investment climate.
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S&P's CreditWeek: June 21st, 2006
In This Issue: U.S. Telecom: Uncertainty Is Calling: Changes in U.S. telecommunications have revolutionized the industry. Rapid consolidation, technological advances, and the entry of new players-as a result of these two factors-are reordering the sector. These changes threaten the incumbents, but at the same time they also offer the potential of new revenue streams to established companies as well as the upstarts.
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S&P's CreditWeek: June 14th, 2006
In This Issue: Hotels And Gaming:Will The Economy Keep Dealing Them Winning Hands?: It is a fact of life as seemingly immutable as death, taxes, and global warming: As the consumer goes, so goes the hotel and gaming business. In recent years, solid economic fundamentals have supported steady growth in both industries, whose fortunes are driven primarily by levels of disposable income, plus consumer and business confidence. Even the Katrina-related deteriora...
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S&P's CreditWeek: June 7th, 2006
In This Issue: The Pension Storm Bearing Down On The Markets: Standard & Poor's currently estimates that corporate pension plans are underfunded by about $140 billion-with other postretirement employee benefits underfunded by more than twice that amount-and state pension funds underfunded by $284 billion. These shortfalls are dwarfed by federal underfunding. Social Security has a $4.6 trillion shortfall, and federal civilian and military employee progra...
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