Fitch

Since one can not get a downgrade of a bank during market hours for fears of springing who knows what circuit breakers, Fitch had to wait until just after the market close to release its latest market surprise which consisted of a "watch negative" announcement on the following banks Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman, Morgan Stanley; others it just slashed some by multiple notches, among which: Landesbank Berlin IDR downgraded to A+ from AA-; Lloyds Banking Group IDR downgraded to A from AA-; RBS IDR downgraded to A from AA-; and most importantly UBS IDR downgraded to A from A+. The reason for the action: "the ongoing Eurozone crisis continues to feed intense market speculation regarding the potential or bank recapitalisation schemes. Therefore for the near term the agency is maintaining a 'single A' range support rating floors for banks in its highest rated Eurozone countries." The Euro is not liking this announcement one bit.

Chinabot is in full fail mode, after a sticksave attempt to save the currency following the Italian downgrade by Fitch was monkeyhammered with the Spanish downgrade which was not only two notches, but sent the country's rating to below that of S&P and Moodys. Adding fuel to the fire is an errant comment from Merkel who has said that Eurobonds are "absolutely the wrong way to go", and lastly, a last minute notification from Fitch which goes for Trifecta by saying that Portugal remains on outlook negative, and the result is visible on the attached chart.

Really close to France now...

Fitch Ratings-London/Milan-07 October 2011: Fitch Ratings has downgraded the Italian Republic's (Italy) foreign and local currency Long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) from 'AA-' (AA minus) to 'A+' (A plus) and the short-term rating from 'F1+' to 'F1'. The Outlook on the long-term ratings is Negative. The Country Ceiling of 'AAA' has also been affirmed. The downgrade reflects the intensification of the Euro zone crisis that constitutes a significant financial and economic shock which has weakened Italy's sovereign risk profile. As Fitch has cautioned previously, a credible and comprehensive solution to the crisis is politically and technically complex and will take time to put in place and to earn the trust of investors. In the meantime, the crisis has adversely impacted financial stability and growth prospects across the region. However, the high level of public debt and fiscal financing requirement along with the low rate of potential growth rendered Italy especially vulnerable to such an external shock.

Gone are the days when rating agencies couched the big fat inconvenient truth in big words and wordy phrases like "Selective Default" (predicated upon 90% acceptances of effective bond tender offers, which as has now become clear is not happening) when discussing Greece. French-owned Fitch let the genie out of the bottle this morning when it announced that it now expects Greece to "probably default" (as in the real deal, not some transitory paper definition), "but not leave the Eurozone." In other words, we have replaced one wishful thinking (partially default) with another (full default, but partial implications). Because unfortunately as most know, there is no charter precedent for keeping a bankrupt country in the EU and currency union. Which means eurocrats are now scrambling to not only lay the liquidity groundwork for a Greek bankruptcy (which they did last week with the global USD liquidity lines, which also conveniently lay out the timing for such an event) but also changing the laws furiously behind the scenes to make sure a Greek default does not violate some European clause, which it certainly will. All of this ignores the fact that the financial aftermath of a Greek default will hit the credibility of the ECB more than anything else. How bureaucracy can provision for that we are not too clear.

In all the excitement over the recently uber-broken market, some may have forgotten America has a muni problem. Here is Fitch with a reminder, as it downgrades New Jersey general obligations from AA to AA-, and continues: "The downgrade of New Jersey's GO bond rating to 'AA-' from 'AA' reflects the mounting budgetary pressure presented by significant and growing funding needs for the state's unfunded pension and employee benefit liabilities, particularly in the context of a weak economic recovery, a high debt burden, limited financial flexibility, and persistent structural imbalance."

A French-owned rating agency (the same country that currently has a short-selling ban) just did all it can not to tip the boat. What can one say but "truly a gutsy call." Unlike S&P which looks at such obsolete things as fundamentals and realistic projections, Fitch instead relies on something far more intangible: "its pivotal role in the global financial system and the flexible, diversified and wealthy economy that provides its revenue base." In other words, it's rated AAA... because it is rated AAA. Somehow we doubt Fitch will take the initiative to be the first to downgrade France... That said even Fitch had some pseudo-harsh words: "Despite its exceptional creditworthiness, the fiscal profile of the US government has deteriorated sharply and is set to become an outlier relative to 'AAA' peers. The overall level of general government debt, which includes debt incurred by states and local governments, is estimated by Fitch to reach 94% of GDP this year, the highest amongst 'AAA' sovereigns. However, federal government indebtedness is lower than in other major 'AAA'-rated central governments. Fitch estimates that federal debt held by the public will be equivalent to approximately 70% of GDP this year compared to around 75% for the UK ('AAA') and France ('AAA')." So, record debt for a AAA-rated country, check, but... AAA-rated. So all is good.

"The two-notch downgrade of Cyprus's ratings to 'BBB' reflects the actual and anticipated fiscal slippage, compounded by Fitch's expectation that the sovereign will be unable to access the international debt markets in order to refinance an increasing debt maturity profile in H211 and H112. The 2011 deficit is now expected to be close to 7% of GDP and not all of the increase, from 4%, since the agency's most recent analysis in June can be attributed to the naval base explosion, which took out half of Cyprus's electricity generating capacity," says Chris Pryce, Director in Fitch's Sovereign Group. The government's calculations indicate its financing requirements in the last five months of the year will be close to EUR1.1bn, of which EUR650m will be existing debt falling due for redemption. Against this, the government has EUR570m of cash balances, representing about half of the total financing requirement. The government anticipates that it will be able to refinance the balance by borrowing from domestic financial institutions, although Fitch considers that this may prove challenging at a time when the banks are facing a decline in asset quality. Even if the sovereign can secure refinancing through H211, it will enter 2012 with minimal cash balances and refinancing needs of EUR1.2bn in the first two months. Under current market conditions (government three-year yields reached 15.4% in August), Fitch believes that the government will be unable to meet this target without recourse to external official assistance, reflecting a lack of options inconsistent with a sovereign issuer in the 'A-' category. At this juncture, Fitch anticipates that such assistance is likely to be forthcoming.
 

Earlier today, Fitch announced it would be the first rating agency to declare Greece has defaulted, albeit on an interim basis. According to Reuters, Fitch Ratings will declare Greece in restricted default on its debt due to the steps taken in a new euro zone rescue package but will likely assign new ratings of a low speculative grade once a bond exchange is completed, the agency said on Friday. The agency said that the reduction in interest rates Greece is paying on its debts and extension of maturities gave it a chance of regaining solvency and would support its rating. "Fitch will assign new post-default ratings to Greece and to the new debt instruments once the default event is cured with the issue of new securities to participating bondholders," the agency said. "The new ratings will likely be low speculative-grade." Elsewhere, confirming that now that Greece is an explicit ward of the EFSF, read Germany and France its rating do not matter, Greek CDS tumbled the most ever, tightening by 500 bps to 1,500 in hours. However, since Greece now exists in a state of limbo when it comes to capital markets and since without the explicit support of the EFSF the country would be insolvent, there is little sense to look at its "risk" through the lens of fixed income any more. Lastly, as the following selection of analyst commentary indicates, there is nothing about this "solution" that is actually beneficial in the long run.

New money is required to address Greece's fiscal funding shortfall that would otherwise emerge in 2012 - a key weakness of the current EU-IMF programme highlighted by Fitch at the turn of the year. Fitch had expected the uncertainty surrounding new money, along with the role of private creditors, to be resolved with the completion of the fourth review of the current EU-IMF programme earlier this month. The agency notes that while the main parameters of a new multi-annual adjustment programme were discussed at an Ecofin meeting on 11-12 July, no further clarity on the volume and the terms of new money or the nature of private sector participation was forthcoming.

As we speculated yesterday...

• If in Fitch's opinion, an announced exchange offer constitutes a DDE,
  the sovereign issuer rating will be lowered to 'C', indicating that
  default is highly likely in the near term
• Fitch will place the issuer rating of the sovereign into default, specifically 'Restricted Default' (RD) upon closing of a distrssed debt exchange.
• Fitch says a potential Greek debt exchange if voluntary, could still be considered a default event
• Fitch says Greek debt exchange would be a default if bondholders terms were worse than original terms
• Fitch says stressed sovereign debt exchange with worse terms is a technical default even if deemed voluntary

The gist is clear: the great unknown of how the rating agencies will treat even a "voluntary" restructuring is still in the closet.

Two weeks ago we speculated that S&P would downgrade Belgium next as the peripheral fire makes inroads to the core. Turns out Fitch is taking charge on this one. Expect S&P to follow shortly. From the just released Fitch statement which revises Belgium's outlook to negative: "In Fitch's view, without political agreement over constitutional reform, it will be difficult to achieve a balanced budget at general government level as laid out in Belgium's Stability Programme. This would require budgetary surplus at lower levels of government and/or significant social security reform, either of which would likely become entangled in Belgium's linguistic-community dispute. Sustained debt reduction will require fiscal reform as well as fiscal discipline over the coming years, which in turn requires a new government with a fresh mandate." EUR for now pretending it doesn't care.

Another oops:

FITCH DOWNGRADES GREECE TO 'B+'; RATING WATCH NEGATIVE

The deflating Dollar is the World's Reserve currency at 62% of all the money in the World and growing fast as Ben buys 'em as fast as Timmy can print them and then loans them out to the Banksters, who promptly lever that money 10:1 to buy commodities.

In a very unsurprising move, Fitch just downgraded Portugal to A-, is on Rating Watch Negative, and may be downgraded further. Nobody cares since everyone knows all too well Europe is pretty much insolvent. In fact we are shocked the EURUSD is not at 2.00 on the news.