S&P Downgrades 37 Global Banks

From the Wall Street Journal:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Tuesday downgraded dozens of large financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp., Barclays PLC and Citigroup Inc., citing a new methodology that reflects weaker confidence in governments' willingness and ability to bail out banks in trouble.

The widely expected move didn't signal a change of any of the banks' individual credit metrics as much as a revision to the assumptions that had previously bolstered them. The new criteria affected 37 banks, most of which were immediately downgraded if not put on negative credit watch.

S&P earlier in November had promised to revise many financial institutions' ratings to better reflect how banks' creditworthiness is linked to the health of the economies in which they operate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204262304577068692845236780.html