Standard & Poor’s lowered the AAA ratings of thousands of municipal bonds tied to the federal government, including housing securities and debt backed by leases, following its Aug. 5 downgrade of the U.S., reports Bloomberg.
The rating company assigned AA+ scores to securities in the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market including school- construction bonds in Irving, Texas; debt backed by a federal lease in Miami; and a bond series for multifamily housing in Oceanside, California. Olayinka Fadahunsi, an S&P spokesman, said he couldn’t provide a dollar figure on the affected debt.
Be very careful holding muni-bonds. A downgrade of a muni debt can be very costly in terms of interest rates for some of these municipalities---some of them, on their own, already are substandard credit risks.
Did you notice the date within the URL (2011-08-07)? It's from Sunday, a full day before the public announcement. Who else knew of the downgrade before the public announcement?
ReplyDeleteIs this the buy signal for stocks?
ReplyDeleteGet the Government out of our schools. De-fund the NEA, and selloff the buildings to private education.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Meredith Whitney is smiling, and she has the right to considering the hit jobs on her after she exposed the Muni's to the sheeple in MSM late last year.
ReplyDeleteConsumer Report just removed the Honda Civic from their "Recommended" list. I think the Consumer Report executives should be arrested!
ReplyDelete