La France perd son AAA - Moody's

France lost its top credit rating with Moody’s Investors Service, dealing a blow to President Francois Hollande’s efforts to show budget credibility in the face of a stalled economy.

France was cut to Aa1 from Aaa, the rating company said today. The Moody’s downgrade follows one by Standard & Poor’s in January and increases pressure on Hollande to find ways to bolster growth in Europe’s second-largest economy in the midst of the region’s three year-old debt crisis.

Moody’s said its decision to downgrade the rating and maintain the negative outlook reflects France’s long-term economic growth outlook is negatively affected by multiple structural challenges and the fiscal outlook is uncertain as a result of its deteriorating economic prospects.

source Bloomberg 

Une première : Standard & Poor's condamnée !

Australia's Federal court issued a landmark judgment on Monday that Standard & Poor's misled investors by giving its highest rating to derivatives that lost almost all their value in the run-up to the 2008 global economic crisis. 

The Australian case marked the first time a ratings agency had faced trial over the complex financial products widely cited as one of the factors that triggered the crisis and could set a precedent for future litigation around the world. 

 In a strongly worded judgment, Justice Jayne Jagot said S&P and ABN Amro had deceived 12 local councils that bought the triple-A rated CPDO, or constant proportion debt obligation, notes created by the bank. The councils were assured the so-called "Rembrandt" notes bought from Australian Local Government Financial Services (LGFS) in late 2006 had a less than 1 percent chance of defaulting.

source : CNBC

Tout le problème dans la méthodologie des agences de notation est de faire passer l'idée que même un AAA (moins de 1% de probabilité de défaut) ne signifie pas zero et qu'en plus cette stat dépend de conditions particulières : le fait de rester dans le cadre d'une loi normale.