The downgrade of the ‘rating’ to the US by the Fitch agency adds pressure to the stock markets after a tenuous start in August. The Ibex 35 is dragged down by doubts and falls more than 1.2%, which leads it to fall below 9,400 points, a setback in line with that of Paris (-1.2%), Frankfurt (- 1.4%), Milan (-1%) and London (-0.43%). The entire Old Continent is stained red by the uncertainty unleashed by this decision, which lowers the grade of the US economy from ‘AAA’ to ‘AA+’ due to the expectation of a fiscal deterioration, the growing government debt and the erosion of US governance compared to its highest-scoring comparable countries.
This tarnishes the course of the stock markets that has also been noted in Asia, where the Nikkei index, the Tokyo reference, has dropped more than 2.3%, after the few encouraging manufacturing PMIs, which show a contraction in activity in the environment of weak demand, as well as the publication of the US manufacturing activity indices for July, which also showed a contraction. In this context, interest on the debt is not unduly affected. The interest on the 10-year American bond relaxes although it remains above the 4% barrier that it touched yesterday, while the German ‘bund’ lowers another half point to 2.5% and the 10-year bond is placed at the 3.5%
