NEW YORK – Standard & Poor’s, a leading, global provider of financial information and investment and risk analysis, unveiled its enhanced Web site.
Standard & Poor’s Web site has been designed to help customers and the general public find their areas of interest. Certain areas require a one-time, no-fee registration. The portal provides direct access to a table of financial information as well as on Standard & Poor’s itself, including office locations, executive biographies, career opportunities, and recent press releases.
The Web site, www.standardandpoors.com, also includes a first-of-its-kind ratings service called “Real-Time Ratings,” a feature that allows the public to view the company’s latest credit rating actions as they are issued.
Besides ratings, users may access statistics, commentary, and data pertaining to Standard & Poor’s indices, including the S&P 1200, the S&P 500, and Standard & Poor’s Credit Indices. Information and analysis on global equity and debt markets, emerging markets, banks, industrials, mutual funds, and a host of other market sectors is also accessible.
“Not only is it easier and faster than our original site, but it also represents the first of many steps,” said Leo C. O’Neill, president of Standard & Poor’s. “We are planning to fully utilize the potential of the Internet to bring our highly valued content to customers, researchers, and decision-makers around the world.”
The “Real-Time Ratings” service marks the first time that any major rating service has displayed ratings actions on a real-time basis in a publicly available, freely accessible, global medium. Starting today, any rating action taken by Standard & Poor’s — including upgrades, downgrades, and new rating assignments — will be displayed on the company’s Web site for a total of eight days. Users should follow the link for “Newly Released Ratings” on the upper left section of the home page and then register for access. After that, ratings actions taken in the last 24 hours will be displayed. Users may also click the “Recent Ratings” button to display ratings actions older than 24 hours.
“We are very pleased to offer our customers and the public access to our most recent rating actions via the Internet,” O’Neill said. “We think this service is critical both to aiding transparency and enabling global markets to function more easily.”
Now, Internet users can access the site and interactively obtain information on all of Standard & Poor’s research, products, and services.
Standard & Poor’s, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, provides independent financial information, analytical services, and credit ratings to the world’s financial markets. Among the company’s many products are the S&P 1200, the premier global equity performance benchmark, the S&P 500, the premier U.S. portfolio index, and credit ratings on more than 220,000 securities and funds worldwide. With more than 5,000 employees located in 21 countries, Standard & Poor’s is an integral part of the global financial infrastructure.
