J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs among ‘too-big-to-fail’ U.S. banks downgraded by S&P

Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Groups and six other major U.S. banks, saying it is no longer confident that the U.S. government would step in to support them in a future crisis.


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Buried in the Fed minutes is another downgrade to the U.S. economy

A goal of a 4% economy? That objective, mentioned frequently in the 2016 presidential race, is getting farther away, according to the latest projections from the staff of the Federal Reserve.
Minutes of the Fed’s Sept. 16-17 policy meeting disclose the Fed staff further trimmed its assumptions for the rates of productivity and potential growth over the medium term. The minutes did not specifically quantify the new forecast of the Fed’s in-house economists.


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IBD: President Obama's Growth Gap Hits $1.31 Trillion

Stagnation: With fourth-quarter GDP growth downgraded in the latest government report, President Obama's anemic economy stretches on. If this had been only an average recovery, we'd be $1.31 trillion richer. ✧ Remember all that talk at the beginning of last year about how prosperity was — finally — just around the corner? In February 2013, for example, Reuters reported "signs are emerging that a more robust recovery is around the bend." ✧ The same month, Bloomberg told its readers that "most Fed policymakers expect growth of 2.3% to 3%." ✧ At the start of last year, the Obama administration projected growth in 2013 would be 2.3%. The Blue Chip consensus forecast was slightly higher. ✧ None of those projections was stellar. But with the Bureau of Economic Analysis' sharp downward revision of Q4 growth — from 3.2% to 2.4% — each turned out to be overly optimistic. Actual gross domestic product growth for 2013 came in at a pathetic 1.9%.

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WSJ: Moody’s Lowers Economic Growth Outlook

By Tess Stynes
Moody’s Analytics said its near-term outlook for the U.S. economy has fallen significantly in the past month [in the] wake of the debate over the U.S. debt ceiling and the downgrade of the nation’s credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s. Read more at the Wall Street Journal... Read More......

The Hill: Obama says serious deficit plan needed in wake of S&P downgrade

The move by ratings agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. debt underscores the need for a major agreement on deficit reduction, President Obama said Monday. ∴ The president said that U.S. debt was still world-class in the eyes of market despite S&P's downward revision ˜ from AAA to AA+ ˜ on Friday, but said it was up to the so-called "supercommittee" established by compromise debt-ceiling legislation to produce an agreement that would forestall a future slide in U.S. creditworthiness. Read more at The Hill...

UPDATE: The Hill - Dow plunges below 11,000 as downgrade fuels market turmoil Read More......