I wonder what would have happened if S&P dropped the rating during the trading day, and not after the markets closed. We probably would have seen another -500 point drop on the DJI.
They wait until late friday to make big changes to give the officaldom/industry a weekend to scramble/grab parachutes. They actually didnt release today until after the SPY stopped trading.
I wonder if they, the parachutes, will be golden this time around.
Or perhaps the drop happened because a lot of the big banks knew that the downgrade was coming. Is it insider trading if everyone knows?