S&P got it wrong, Buffett says

Billionaire says credit rating should have been raised, not downgraded

Posted Aug 8, 2011

Global Post

trackrecord/FlickrWarren Buffett

U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett not only thinks that Standard & Poor's shouldn't have downgraded the country's credit rating from AAA to AA+ — he thinks it should have been raised to "quadruple A."

The Berkshire Hathaway chairman, 80, also tried to restore confidence in the markets after last week's dramatic Wall Street sell-off, telling Bloomberg Television: "Financial markets create their own dynamics, but I don't think we're facing a double dip recession."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 4 percent Thursday, as the U.S. stock market slumped over investor fears of the debt crisis in Europe and a weakening economic outlook in the United States.

Markets made a shaky recover Friday, but are expected to open heavily down on Monday after the S&P downgrade.

Buffett, 80, meantime, said Friday that that the S&P decision "doesn't make sense" and that his Omaha, Nebraska-based company would hold onto its sizeable number of U.S. Treasury bills.

"In Omaha, the U.S. is still triple-A. In fact, if there were a quadruple-A rating, I'd give the U.S. that," he told Fox Business News.

While Buffett told Bloomberg that he doesn’t rely on the views of ratings firms when buying and selling securities, Berkshire is the biggest shareholder of Moody’s Corp. The U.S. maintains the top credit rating at both Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.

This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.