The ratings agency said late Monday that it had put the credit of 15 Eurozone countries, including AAA-rated Germany, on a 90-day watch. The move means each affected country has 50% chance of a downgrade.
European leaders are scheduled to meet in Brussels Dec. 8 and 9 to discuss EU treaty changes that would mitigate the debt crisis, such as restrictions on budget deficits. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled an outline of the plan Monday.
The timing of the S&P warning "could hold leaders' feet to the fire and force them to go through with a comprehensive solution," Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments, told Reuters.
Reaction of the world's stock and bond markets was muted, with investors apparently looking ahead to the summit.
Money Morning Capital Waves Strategist Shah Gilani said it was "about time" the ratings agencies started to get serious about credit ratings in the Eurozone, saying they were behind the curve on such problems as mortgage-backed securities.
"Now they're pushing their new "ahead of the tsunami' PR campaign," he said. "Their PR agenda aside, they're right to be knocking these credits down to reality."
They Had it Coming
S&P listed several reasons for its warning."After a good two years of trying to manage the crisis, the political efforts have not been able to arrest matters," Moritz Kraemer, head of European sovereign ratings at S&P, told the Financial Times. "It is our view that this is a systemic stress, a confidence crisis that affects the Eurozone as a whole."
Those "stresses" include tightening credit, rising government bond yields, squabbling among Eurozone leaders about how to cope with the crisis and the rising risk of a Eurozone recession next year.
"We are approaching a very important moment where the crisis could take a very significant turning point for the worse and we want to warn investors," Kraemer told The FT. "Considering how the crisis has deepened and the challenges that they are facing, [the summit] is the last good opportunity that policymakers have."
Although the S&P said it would take the results of this week's summit into consideration, no one should doubt the agency's resolve. This past summer S&P followed through on a similar threat to cut the credit rating of the United States to AA+ from AAA following the debt ceiling crisis debacle.
"S&P's view is that the political outcome will also drive creditworthiness, and I don't think anyone in their right mind would dispute this point," Ashok Parameswaran, an emerging-markets analyst at Invesco Advisers Inc., told Bloomberg News.