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European markets have not let the massive ratings downgrade cast a shadow over trading on Monday, with only a slight fall.
The announcement of the ratings giant Standard & Poor’s that it slashed the scores of nine EU nations, including the Triple-A scores of France and Austria, came after Europe’s markets closed on Friday.
European leaders have been quick to criticize credit ratings agencies for having a negative impact on the 17-nation monetary union at the very time it is attempting to avert a crisis.
It has been a tense weekend for financiers, but financial commentator and co-founder of Quantum Hedge Fund Jim Rogers explained to RT why the markets are calm on Monday. It is simply because the US-based agencies are becoming obsolete.
“It means that you should not bother to pay any attention to the rating agencies. Everything they have done in the past 15 or 20 years has been wrong,” he raged. “I stopped bothering about them long ago. Everybody knows that France is no longer Triple-A, everybody knows that Italy is no longer as highly-rated as it used to be. The market knows all about this. This is not news. I know you have to report something, but this is not news to people in the market.”
Meanwhile another ratings agency, Moody’s, says on Monday it is keeping France’s AAA credit rating for now, despite rival S&P’s downgrade. This forced S&P to promise it would update its position on France later this quarter.
