The downgrades left Portugal one notch above junk rating and Greece's creditworthiness below that of Egypt.
Median default probabilities for Singapore corporations have risen 35-fold since January 1997, to 4.2%, a junk rating.
Lazard was branded with a junk rating by Moody's Investor Services.
"At the margin, this could reduce demand, but nobody should have been buying this stuff on the basis there wasn't a material probability of at least one junk rating at some point in the future, " Mr. McNamara said of the bond sale's postponement.
The reasons given by Standard and Poor's for warning that it may downgrade the credit ratings of all but one of the eurozone's member governments - the exception being Greece, which already has an exceptionally low junk rating - are in a sense uncontroversial.
General Motors, now loaded with liquid assets, sells at 3 times enterprise value with a junk credit rating.
Already the company is rated junk by rating agencies, and its cash balances indicate increasingly limited financial flexibility for a prospective turnaround.
Investors Services downgraded the aluminum giant's debt to a "junk" rating of Ba1 from Baa3, citing continued headwinds facing the aluminum industry and aluminum pricing.
Debt has dropped to 3.5 times operating income from 7.2 times back in 1996, enough to support the firm's Bbb junk-bond rating.
But the company's "junk" credit rating has impeded its fundraising to the point that it has difficulty borrowing at rates that make the loans profitable.
The company's debt has been downgraded to "junk" status by rating agencies.
Then the mayor flew to Wall Street, which he boasted he would so impress with his forceful ideas that it would upgrade Miami's bond-rating from junk status. (It listened politely but remained unmoved.) It was then that a columnist, Carl Hiaasen, advised the mayor in the Miami Herald that, while in New York, he should visit Bellevue, an insane asylum of legend.
But if it's too dire, he risks sending GM's BBB- credit rating into the junk pile.
The growing worries about the debt crisis in Greece, which saw its credit rating downgraded to junk status last week, certainly qualifies as uncertainty.
It hasn't been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company's bond rating to "junk, " and the Lumia 900's violently slashed price.
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Its debt rating cut to junk status.
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One agency that grades the fitness of a country's finances, Fitch Ratings, has put the country's debt rating at "junk" status, meaning it must pay a higher interest rate to attract borrowers who are not certain to be paid back.
At the other end of the smartphone business, Nokia's credit rating was downgraded to junk status by Fitch.
In July came a stinging insult:EDS' debt rating was downgraded to junk-bond levels.
In a blow to its prestigious image, auction house Sotheby's has had its debt rating downgraded to "junk" status.
Sharp, which has struggled amid falling sales and a rising yen, has had its credit rating cut to "junk" status.
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Its credit rating was downgraded to junk, and Messier was out.
In November, Sony suffered the ignominy of having its credit rating downgraded to "junk" by Fitch - indicating that the ratings agency has serious doubts about whether Sony will be able to repay its debts.
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Debt analysts recently cut El Paso's rating to one notch above junk.
If debate drags on for too long, Iceland's credit rating, already close to junk, could be downgraded again and that would threaten the chances of a recovery.
Six months ago, Marubeni, a Japanese trading company whose bonds are rated as junk by Moody's, a rating agency, paid investors 6-7 percentage points more than top-quality borrowers.
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