Meredith Smiles: S&P Cuts AAA Ratings on Thousands of Municipal Bonds

08-10-2011 • EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Standard & Poor’s lowered the AAA ratings of thousands of municipal bonds tied to the federal government, including housing securities and debt backed by leases, following its Aug. 5 downgrade of the U.S., reports Bloomberg. The rating company assigned AA+ scores to securities in the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market including school- construction bonds in Irving, Texas; debt backed by a federal lease in Miami; and a bond series for multifamily housing in Oceanside, California. Olayinka Fadahunsi, an S&P spokesman, said he couldn’t provide a dollar figure on the affected debt. Be very careful holding muni-bonds. A downgrade of a muni debt can be very costly in terms of interest rates for some of these municipalities---some of them, on their own, already are substandard credit risks.