S&P ratings cuts: Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Cyprus are slashed by 2 notches. Austria, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia are cut one notch. Having their ratings affirmed: Germany, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Estonia.
More from S&P: The agency faults the EU for focusing too much on cutting budgets and not recognizing the issues "are as much a consequence of rising external imbalances and divergences in competitiveness between the (core and the periphery)," i.e. Italian, Spanish, and Greek labor can't compete with Germany.
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