MarketFoolery: 04.18.2011
MarketFoolery
The Motley Fool
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2011
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Standard & Poor's cuts its outlook on U.S. sovereign debt. Our analysts talk about what it means for investors and debate the commercial success of Men's Wearhouse.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Monday, April 18th, and this is Market Foolery. I'm Matt Greer. I'm sitting in for Chris Hill this week. |
| 0:08.0 | I'm joined by Bill Barker from Motley Full Asset Management and Andy Cross and Jason Moser from Motley Full Stock Advisor. |
| 0:14.5 | Guys, welcome. |
| 0:15.5 | Thanks, Mack. |
| 0:16.5 | Hey Mack. |
| 0:17.5 | Okay, guys, on Monday, the big news with the market was the S&P cutting its outlook on U.S. sovereign debt from stable to negative. |
| 0:26.4 | The S&P cited large budget deficits and rising government debt as a couple of the reasons. |
| 0:32.0 | Bill, this isn't the sexiest story, but yet the markets |
| 0:35.6 | clearly reacted to it. It's a story that matters to investors. What's going on here? |
| 0:39.5 | Well, you know, I think this is something that connects back to starting with the election last fall and some actual movement, a lot of talk, a tiny bit of movement on actually attacking what is a growing problem and that |
| 0:57.3 | is the national debt. |
| 0:59.2 | And this is one piece of that puzzle which is S&P noting formally that if nothing is done, the U.S. |
| 1:08.1 | debt is not going to be as sure a bet as it historically has been and S&P quite reasonably has some concerns that a |
| 1:17.0 | deal is not going to be reached despite the talk from both sides of the political aisle that they want something done, but whether anybody can ever find any agreement or that they would do so within the next two years is something that Standard Pours has basically said there's at least a one-third |
| 1:35.6 | chance that nothing will be done and if nothing is done people have good reason to want |
| 1:41.9 | more money when they lend their money to the United States than they |
| 1:46.7 | have in the past. |
| 1:47.7 | Okay, so Andy, follow up on that last point. |
| 1:50.3 | What does that mean for investors in concrete terms? |
| 1:52.6 | A few numbers here, Mac, the scary part is that the US debt as a percentage of our GDP is now going, |
| 1:59.0 | by the end of this fiscal year will end up over 100%. |
| 2:02.1 | So where this gets really scary is that if investors start |
... |
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