Credit ratings: how Fitch, Moody's and S&P rate each country

How do credit ratings vary by country and by ratings agencies? Economists expect the UK to lose it's coveted AAA rating this year.

Phillip Inman has more on the story here, where he writes:

Many economists predict at least one of the three main credit ratings agencies – Moody's, Fitch or Standard & Poor's – will declare the UK a bigger lending risk in response to the chancellor's admission in the autumn statement that austerity will run for at least eight years, until 2018, rather than the original five.

Last year the UK was given a warning by Fitch when the credit rating outlook was changed to negative, becoming the second ratings agency to put the treasured AAA rating at risk after Moody's made the same move. This signalled a "slightly greater than 50% chance" that Britain would lose its AAA rating with Fitch in the next two years.

At the same time as changing the UK's outlook to 'negative', Moody's made a range of adjustments including downgrades for Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain.

At that time, Moody's also announced France and Austria would share the same fate as the UK with their outlooks being changed to negative.

Last October, Standard and Poors (S&P) downgraded Spain's sovereign ratings to BBB-, just one grade above junk status. S&P attached a "negative outlook" to its rating, a warning of another possible downgrade in the medium term.

Just days earlier Moody's cut its assessment of Cyprus's government bonds, downgrading them by one notch from Ba3 to B3. The ratings agency cited fragile and weakening banks as the main factor in its decision, stating:

In order to maintain appropriate domestic bank capital levels, the Cypriot government will likely need to provide financial support to the country's banks that could threaten the sustainability of the government's debt burden

So, who are the ratings agencies? The big three agencies are Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poors. What they do is assess how likely a borrower is to be able to repay its debts and help those trading debt contracts in the secondary market.

That means for those trading debt contracts such as Treasury gilts after they have been issued, ratings agencies help assess a fair price to charge. Ratings agencies have been criticised for having too much clout in jittery markets during the financial crisis. They were widely attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by certain securities, in particular mortgage-backed securities.

Losing your rating or being downgraded can have a fatal effect on your country's ability to borrow money on the markets.

Thanks to the three big agencies, we can bring you the ratings of countries around the world as of today. Because each agency's approach is slightly different, we have colour-coded them in three broad categories too. All the ratings have been updated today. Ratings for previous updates last year and in 2011 are in the spreadsheet, so you can see how ratings have changed over time.

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