Standard & Poor's, Europe Debt Crisis | featured news

Standard & Poor's ratings agency on Tuesday upgraded Greece's credit grade by 6 notches, yanking the debt-heavy country out of default but still keeping its devalued bonds in junk status.

Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street after some gloomy economic data from Europe. Just after the opening bell, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 53 points at 13,526. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is down seven at 1,453, and the Nasdaq composite index is off 28 at 3,152.

Standard & Poor's ratings agency has downgraded France's credit rating, French television channels reported on Friday, citing a government source.

The worst week for the stock market in two months ended with a whimper in thin trading Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 4.8 percent this week, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 4.7 percent. Both had their worst weeks since Sept. 23.

Italy's sovereign debt rating cut by Standard & Poor's, the latest move in a deepening and continuing European debt crisis.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.

Standard & Poor's cuts Greece's credit rating, saying eurozone plans to restructure the country's debts would constitute a default.

The rating agency said a plan proposed by the French government and banks to roll over some debt could fall within the definition of default.

Standard & Poor's cut its ratings on Greece three notches on its expectations of the likelihood of one or more defaults over the next 12 months.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded two of the euro zone's most troubled member states, citing fears that the pair may have to restructure their debt after 2013.