Standard & Poor's rating upgrades outpace downgrades in second quarter

By Angela McDaniels

Tacoma, Wash., July 13 - Standard & Poor's downgraded 109 global corporate issuers and upgraded 124 in the second quarter, according to an agency news release.

This brought the downgrade ratio to 47%, which is the same as in the second quarter of 2007.

"The decline in downgrades during the current recovery period is much faster than what we saw following the previous two recessions in 1990/1991 and 2001," Diane Vazza, head of S&P's global fixed-income research, said in the release. S&P's economists believe that the most recent recession ended in the third of quarter of 2009.

"In addition, outlooks appear to be more stable than they were during the previous recovery. Negative bias declined to 21% at the end of second-quarter 2010 from its peak of 37% in April 2009, which suggests that credit markets likely will continue to move toward stability."

The agency defines negative bias as the proportion of issuers with a negative outlook or ratings on CreditWatch negative.

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