What is the Standard and Poor rating system?

Standard & Poor’s is one of the largest credit rating agencies, assigning letter grades to companies and countries and the debt they issue on a scale of AAA to D, indicating their degree of investment risk. The popular S&P 500 Index is perhaps Standard & Poor’s best-known product.

What is an SD rating?

An ‘SD’ rating is assigned when S&P Global Ratings believes that the obligor has selectively defaulted on a specific issue or class of obligations but it will continue to meet its payment obligations on other issues or classes of obligations in a timely manner.

What is Fitch rating scale?

Fitch’s credit rating scale for issuers and issues is expressed using the categories ‘AAA’ to ‘BBB’ (investment grade) and ‘BB’ to ‘D’ (speculative grade) with an additional +/- for AA through CCC levels indicating relative differences of probability of default or recovery for issues.

What does a BB rating mean?

The BB credit rating means there is a higher probability for default of a debt issuer or a debt instrument. This is the grade issued by S&P and Fitch, while the respective grade from Moody’s is Ba2. BB is the second-best non-investment grade.

Is AA a good credit rating?

The first rating is a AAA while the second highest is AA. This is followed by an A-rating. Anything that falls in the A-class is considered to be high quality, which means the debt issuer has a very strong likelihood of meeting its financial obligations.

What does a negative outlook mean?

A negative outlook refers to the long-term rating the issuer currently is assigned. It indicates Standard & Poor’s view that the rating could be downgraded if the scenario upon which the rating is based does not transpire.

What is Moody’s AAA rating?

AAA ratings are issued to investment-grade debt that has a high level of creditworthiness with the strongest capacity to repay investors. The AA+ rating is issued by S&P and is similar to the Aa1 rating issued by Moody’s. It comes with very low credit risk and indicates the issuer has a strong capacity to repay.