Analysts swiftly downgraded the sector and even at the end of last month, downgrades outnumbered upgrades.
This was one of the reasons the credit rating agencies began their recent spate of downgrades.
The catalyst: ratings agency downgrades on structured products like collateralized debt obligations containing subprime-tainted mortgage collateral.
Further, the downgrades and negative writeups put out by Wedbush and TheStreet.com yesterday were misguided.
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Credit rating agencies are considering downgrades of BNP Paribas and two other major French banks.
The phenomenon was a large factor in 44 credit-quality downgrades by Moody's last year.
They compared the short-selling activity to downgrades by analysts at 14 of Wall Street's biggest brokerages.
Ratings downgrades make it harder for banks to sell credit-default swaps tied to bonds or loans.
In some cases downgrades of assets that back CDOs have gutted the securities' value.
Crisis countries remain highly vulnerable to bank runs, debt downgrades, deepening recessions and political instability.
Higher interest rates and a succession of credit rating downgrades have increased GMAC's cost of borrowing.
If on the other hand, the situation deteriorates, additional downgrades would be in order.
The ratio of analyst estimate upgrades to downgrades has shown a recent turn, UBS notes.
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Downgrades are coming in on AAPL, with the most recent coming from Citigroup last night.
Even so, Anadarko bond investors, fearing rating agency downgrades, have sold the paper in recent days.
Any downgrades or price-target cuts could provide additional selling pressure for the shares.
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That said, the downgrades of France and Austria have created technical problems for the ESM's construction.
Melek cited various downgrades in global economic growth, including one from the International Monetary Fund.
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This, in turn, will likely lead to numerous ratings downgrades for publicly traded homebuilders.
Should this bullish contingent offer up any downgrades, the stock could be in trouble.
Bonds with direct backing by the U.S. government, such as housing bonds, could face downgrades.
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Given the potential downgrades to some state GOs, essential service revenue bonds could outperform GOs.
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For contrarian investors, this could be a sore spot, as it creates the potential for downgrades.
The downgrades left Portugal one notch above junk rating and Greece's creditworthiness below that of Egypt.
Greece was cut by two notches to 'BB-', the latest in a series of downgrades.
Rather paradoxically, these downgrades come as global equity markets come off massive, central bank sparked, rallies.
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This also happens if there are credit downgrades on the bonds posted as collateral.
"As far as sentiment goes, rating downgrades are no competition for the ECB's three-year LTROs, " he said.
Cited reasons for the downgrades include investment and operating losses, and in some cases, weakening student demand.
Mixed Wall Street ratings have leaned more heavily toward downgrades than upgrades recently for most major carriers.
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