USD

What S&P actually said

Standard & Poor's has placed its 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term

sovereign credit ratings on the United States of America on CreditWatch

with negative implications.

Standard & Poor's uses CreditWatch to indicate a substantial likelihood

of it taking a rating action within the next 90 days, or in response to

events presenting significant uncertainty to the creditworthiness of an

issuer. Today's CreditWatch placement signals our view that, owing to the

dynamics of the political debate on the debt ceiling, there is at least a

one-in-two likelihood that we could lower the long-term rating on the

U.S. within the next 90 days. We have also placed our short-term rating

on the U.S. on CreditWatch negative, reflecting our view that the current

situation presents such significant uncertainty to the U.S.'

creditworthiness.

Since we revised the outlook on our 'AAA' long-term rating to negative

from stable on April 18, 2011, the political debate about the U.S.'

fiscal stance and the related issue of the U.S. government debt ceiling

has, in our view, only become more entangled. Despite months of

negotiations, the two sides remain at odds on fundamental fiscal policy

issues. Consequently, we believe there is an increasing risk of a

substantial policy stalemate enduring beyond any near-term agreement to

raise the debt ceiling.

As a consequence, we now believe that we could lower our ratings on the

U.S. within three months.


Ashraf