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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC ) is now looking into potential insider trading by Standard & Poor's employees before the rating agency's decision to downgrade the U.S.'s long-term debt, according to Financial Times. The SEC has asked S&P to disclose which employees knew of the downgrade decision before the public announcement, as part of a preliminary examination into potential insider trading. The examination staff will likely try to decipher whether any person's with knowledge of the decision shorted stocks, or in any way benefitted from the U.S.'s downgrade to AA+ from an AAA credit rating. The SEC may...

China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower's credit rating was downgraded, saying the "good old days" of borrowing were over. Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. long-term credit rating from top-tier AAA by a notch to AA-plus on Friday over concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. China -- the United States' biggest creditor -- said Washington only had itself to blame for its plight and called for a new stable global reserve currency. "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days...

China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday that Washington needed to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt. Though Beijing has few options other than to continue to buy United States Treasury bonds, Chinese officials are clearly concerned that the country’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, are being devalued. “The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of...