Fitch Warns UK is at Significant Risk of a Downgrade

The U.K. faces a “significant” risk of losing its triple-A rating, as its economy has worsened since it was placed on negative outlook last year, David Riley, Fitch Ratings global managing director for sovereign ratings, told CNBC.

“We have had the U.K. on a negative outlook for almost 12 months and during that period, the economic and the fiscal outlook has actually deteriorated,” Riley said on Monday.

The U.K. has retained its triple-A rating from all three major ratings agencies since the 1970s, including through the “winter of discontent” in 1978, the sterling’s crash out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, and the recent European financial crisis. However, it was placed on negative watch by both Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings last year.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza