s&p Archives » Pinoy Money Talk

U.S. Stock Market Crash? Reasons why Dow, S&P are falling

U.S. stock markets have been suffering immense sell-offs recently, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunging 4.6% on February 5 and another 4.15% decline … Read More

What a credit ratings upgrade means for the Philippines

Imagine your parents paying P10,000 monthly amortization to a lender for a housing loan. Let’s assume that they have been paying religiously and on time during the entire duration of the loan. On the final year of payment, the lender decided to give them a bonus, reducing the amortization to P8,000 per month as a form of goodwill.

The extra cash can now be used by your parents to put more food on the table, to pay for housing repairs and maintenance, or even to increase your weekly allowance. Regardless of where it will be put to use, the savings from the loan reduction will surely benefit your family.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) credit ratings by country (2014)

A credit rating is a measure of the credit worthiness of a government, a public entity, or a private corporation. The credit rating is also used as an assessment of the quality of debt instruments issued by any of these organizations.

U.S. Fed announces Quantitative Easing (QE3) tapering

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve announced yesterday, June 19, that if the U.S. economy continues to improve, it will start winding down its asset-buying program and may completely end it by mid-year of 2014.

The news sent stock markets in the United States down by more than 1 percent, with the Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) closing 205.96 points lower, or 1.34%, at 15,112.27.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500), meanwhile, closed 1.39% lower at 1,628.92, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.12% at 3,443.20.

(S&P upgrade) Philippines gets 2nd investment grade rating

Just a month after the Philippines received its first-ever investment grade rating from Fitch Ratings, another credit rating agency gave the country its stamp of approval by bestowing upon the Philippines a BBB- rating, equivalent to a lower medium investment grade.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P), one of the top three credit rating agencies in the world, upgraded the Philippines’ long-term foreign currency- denominated debt from BB+ to BBB-, with a stable outlook. (See definitions of the credit ratings in the article “Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P and what their credit ratings mean“)

[Moody’s] Credit Rating by Country, as of February 2013

As explained in the article Credit Ratings by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings, a “credit rating” is a measure of the ability of an entity, whether a company or a sovereign state, to repay its debt. It shows the quality of loan instruments issued by the borrowing entity and whether these debt instruments can be repaid on time.

Dow Jones posts biggest gain since 2009, but is it sustainable?

A coordinated response by the world’s leading central banks to the Eurozone crisis led U.S. stocks to score their biggest daily percentage gains yesterday (November 30), with three benchmark indices ending with at least a 4% gain.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed at 12,045.68, up 490.05 points or 4.24%. It was the Dow’s biggest one-day gain since March 23, 2009.
The S&P 500 also surged, ending the trading day up 51.77 points, or 4.33%, to 1,246.96. It was the S&P’s highest daily gain since August 11, 2011.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index also soared yesterday closing at 2,620.34, up 104.83 points or 4.17%.

Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility — a bad move?

Search engine giant Google recently announced it is purchasing Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., the former Mobile Devices Division of Motorola, for $12.5 billion. According to Google, the move was meant to protect its Android operating software from intellectual property lawsuits.

But was it a good move?