S&P raises Greek rating, lifting it out of default

Boosted to low-speculative grade, after Athens completed the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in financial history

Standard & Poor's agency raised Greece's credit rating out of default territory on Wednesday, following structural changes by which nation slashed its debt by one-third. The country remains in the junk category with a CCC rating.

Marc Chandler submits:The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. provides a central register for credit default. A recent report indicated that there are about $5 bln of outstanding Greek sovereign CDS. Greek debt in dollar terms is about $483 bln, meaning the CDS covers about 1% of Greece's sovereign debt. The size of the sovereign CDS market is much smaller than one might expect. Consider Italy: DTCC estimates its sovereign CDS market is about $25 bln. The outstanding debt is around $2.3 trillion.

Standard & Poor’s raised Greece’s credit rating out of default territory after Athens slashed its debt by the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in financial history.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Fitch on Friday cut Greece's rating to "restricted default" over its debt swap deal, as expected, becoming the third of the three major rating agencies to slash Greece into default territory. Fitch said in a statement it would upgrade Greece's rating once the debt exchange was completed and the new securities have been issued, adding that the new rating was likely to be low speculative grade. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander)