WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Credit rating firm Egan-Jones and its president Sean Egan agreed to be barred for 18 months from giving officially recognized ratings on asset-backed or government securities to resolve charges they lied on registration forms, U.S. regulators said on Tuesday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the firm and Egan misrepresented its operations, were sloppy in compliance, violated conflict-of-interest provisions and were ordered to pay a fine of $30,000.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The amount of sovereign and corporate credit on the cusp of being downgraded to junk status more than quadrupled in 2012, due primarily to an erosion in the credit quality of the world’s banking sector, Standard & Poor’s data showed on Wednesday.

At the end of last year, S&P rated $984.8 billion worth of debt, from 52 separate issuers, one step away from speculative grade, also referred to as junk. At the end of 2011, the number of credits that were one downgrade away from junk status was 38, representing $227.4 billion.

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States faces a “material risk” of losing its AAA status if there is a repeat of the wrangling seen in 2011 over raising the country’s self-imposed debt ceiling, credit ratings firm Fitch said on Tuesday.

The United States scraped up against its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on December 31 and is now employing special measures to meet its financial obligations. The Treasury Department said those steps could be exhausted by mid-February.

NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Fitch Ratings on Thursday cut
South Africa’s sovereign credit rating to BBB from BBB-plus,
citing rising social and political tensions and the inability of
the government to implement effective reforms.

The rand weakened to a month’s low against the
dollar after the downgrade, which follows similar moves by rival
agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s last year and could hit
government debt when the market opens on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States must do more than the recently passed “fiscal cliff” measures if the country is to rescue its Aaa debt rating from its current negative outlook, rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said on Wednesday.

The last minute deal passed on Tuesday to avert potentially devastating tax hikes and spending cuts clarifies the medium-term deficit and debt trajectory of the federal government, Moody’s said in a statement.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors turned to the relative safety of the U.S. dollar on Friday even though Washington’s struggle to come up with a negotiated budget that averts spending cuts and tax increases took a turn for the worse, and increased chances of a recession.

Markets fell beginning late on Thursday when the budget plan proposed by the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, failed to win support from his own party, increasing the chances the austerity measures kick in and pull the country over the so-called fiscal cliff.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Currencies held to tight ranges in thin pre-holiday trade on Thursday, with the euro see-sawing against the U.S. dollar while investors struggle to gauge developments on U.S. budget talks against a backdrop of generally positive U.S. economic data.

Concerns about U.S. policymakers not being able to reach a resolution on the so-called fiscal cliff of government spending cuts and tax rises in January dogged the currency market.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The euro touched an 8-1/2-month high against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected German business confidence data, only to be undermined by a souring of the budget talks in Washington.

The euro’s advance, also bolstered by increased optimism about debt-plagued Greece, brought it to a 16-month peak against the yen, before optimism faded in thin pre-holiday trade.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The euro touched an 8-1/2-month high against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected German business confidence data, only to be undermined by a souring of the budget talks in Washington.

The euro’s advance, also bolstered by increased optimism about debt-plagued Greece, brought it to a 16-month peak against the yen, before optimism faded in thin pre-holiday trade.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The yen dropped to a 20-month low against the U.S. dollar on Monday after Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide election victory that leaders promise will usher in aggressive monetary easing policies to weaken the currency.

Former prime minister Shinzo Abe returns to power with the LDP’s victory. He campaigned on a platform to boost the moribund economy with hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to beat deflation, a recipe for weakening the yen that gives Tokyo an export advantage in the international markets.