Ratings agency Standard & Poor.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) is a division of McGraw-Hill that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks and bonds. It is well known for the stock market indexes, the US-based S&P 500, the Australian S&P/ASX 200, the Canadian S&P/TSX, the Italian S&P/MIB and India's S&P CNX Nifty.
Standard & Poor's operates as a financial services company. Its products and services include credit ratings, equity research, S&P indices, funds ratings, risk solutions, governance services, evaluations, and data services.
The company serves institutional professionals, financial institutions, corporations, financial advisors, and individual investors worldwide.
Standard & Poor's, as a credit rating agency (CRA), issues credit ratings for the debt of public and private corporations. It is one of several CRAs that have been designated a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
It issues both short-term and long-term credit ratings.
Credit ratings of AAA (the highest rating available) were given to large portions of even the riskiest pools of loans. Investors, trusting the low risk profile that AAA implies, loaded up on these collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that later became unsellable. Those that could be sold often took staggering losses. For instance, losses on $340.7 million worth of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) issued by Credit Suisse Group added up to about $125 million, despite being rated AAA by Standard & Poor's.
Since companies need to pay certain fees for rating their bonds, the rating will not be as accurate as it should be. Some of the bonds sold by Lehman Brothers had been rated 'AAA'.
The Dow on Friday 4/12/09 is 10 market days to Quadraple Witching.
Japanese index futres expiry 5 market days to go.
On the day of Dow expiry is the muslim holiday(Awal Muharam)-a new calender year.

Friday's new high of the week was boosted by a surprising drop in the unemployment rate and far fewer job losses last month raised hopes for a sustained economic recovery.
But why the candlestick got burnt so suddenly?Don't tell me that the rogue fund managers are using "interest rates hike fear" again to short-sell the markets.Merely taking advantage of the year end unwinding of portfolios and to get a better bonuses.
The December's candlestick lower shadow is too short and it might again make an attempt to find a second low before it boost up again.