Embarrassed ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said on Friday that its erroneous downgrade of France arose when an automatic e-mail was sent out after an old Web page on French banks was changed.
As European officials called for a crackdown on the behavior and power of ratings agencies, S&P explained Thursday’s e-mailed downgrade announcement as an accident related to a test adjustment left on its client Web site last year.
“Standard & Poor’s has determined that yesterday’s erroneous message regarding a downgrade resulted from a technical error wholly unrelated to the sovereign rating on France,” the company said in a statement.
It said that in December last year, it had placed its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) for France on the company’s main Global Credit Portal.
They did this as a test, but eventually did not place the other country BICRA rankings on the portal.
When S&P on Thursday issued a new review of BICRA rankings, the ranking page for France on the portal automatically was made “N/A,” or “not available.”
That triggered e-mails to subscribers notifying them of a downgrade of France, which has a top-flight “AAA” rating, sparking short-lived havoc in the markets before S&P sent out a correction.
“The system mistakenly interpreted this change as a ‘downgrade’ and triggered a message to a limited number of subscribers who had signed up to receive e-mail alerts,” S&P said.
S&P has since reiterated France’s rating of “‘AAA/A-1+’ with a stable outlook.”
Coming when French finances were already under heavy pressure and with ratings agencies already threatening downgrades, and with turmoil building over Italy’s already--devalued finances, the error infuriated EU policymakers.
Dubbing the S&P mistake “serious,” EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier said on Friday that the incident underlined “that in the current tense and volatile market situation, market players must exercise discipline and demonstrate a special sense of responsibility.”
Barnier said he would propose reforms that would reduce reliance in the EU on ratings, increased competition and transparency in sovereign debt ratings and toughen liability for misconduct.
S&P said it “has taken immediate steps to prevent a similar error from happening again.”
The seizure of one of the largest known mercury shipments in history, moving from mines in Mexico to illegal Amazon gold mining zones, exposes the wide use of the toxic metal in the rainforest, according to authorities. Peru’s customs agency, SUNAT, found 4 tonnes of illegal mercury in Lima’s port district of Callao, according to a report by the non-profit Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA). “This SUNAT intervention has prevented this chemical from having a serious impact on people’s health and the environment, as can be seen in several areas of the country devastated by the illegal use of mercury and illicit activities,”
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
Taiwan’s property transactions in the first half of this year fell 26.4 percent year-on-year to about 130,000 units, as credit controls and mortgage restrictions dampened demand, data from the Ministry of the Interior showed yesterday. Keelung saw the steepest decline, with transactions plummeting 45.6 percent to just 2,041 units — the lowest since the ministry began its survey in 2006. In contrast, Miaoli County was the only region to experience year-on-year growth, with transactions rising 2.4 percent to 3,229 units. Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) attributed the increase in deals in Miaoli, particularly Jhunan (竹南) and Toufen (頭份) townships, to spillover demand
RSS