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Standard & Poor's downgraded General Electric*, lowering its rating by one notch to AA-plus with a stable outlook, down from the top-tier, AAA credit rating it enjoyed. S&P cited the credit profile of the conglomerate's GE Capital arm. Following are some fascinating if sobering facts about GE and other big stocks....
Per Standard & Poor's:
GE [GE
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] was AAA rated since 1956.
(Recall that the recent dividend cut was the first time that happened since 1938.)
That leaves only five U.S. industrial companies remaining now with triple-A ratings. (That excludes financials, e.g., Berkshire Hathaway [BRK.A
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], and multinationals, e.g., Toyota Motor [TM
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].)
The five survivors:
- ADP [ADP
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]
- Exxon Mobil [XOM
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]
- Johnson & Johnson [JNJ
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]
- Pfizer [PFE
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]
- Microsoft [MSFT
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]
...and of these 5... only Pfizer is on credit watch/negative since 1/26/09
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Disclosures:
*General Electric is the corporate parent of CNBC.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes