agency has cut america s debt outlook from stable down to negative. they say they are worried washington is not able to get together and reach any kind of solution as to how to solve this problem. so it makes them concerned about the credit of the country going forward. the consumer confidence level has plummeted since that announcement yesterday. this is the most recent reading. it measures the economic confidence on a daily basis. it has been an 8-point drop to 74.4. that s lower than after the 9/11 attacks. economist ben stein is the coauthor of the little book of alternative investments. what a sad story about the journalist. martha: the sad story that this
per and no word on his condition. the s & p earlier issued a negative forecast for america s credit standing. that s a first. agency says it has very little confidence the white house and congress can strike a deal on a long-term deficit plan and that puts our situation in this country in perilous standards. rand paul says agrees with that. he says he does not see any hope that the two sides will find middle ground. steve forbes joins us. welcome. so when you saw this headline cross this morning that the long-term debt outlook for the united states of america no long are stable, it s now negative, what was your reaction? relief. the united states one nation in the world has hasn t done have much to get its house in order.
currently up by by 0.5%. one stock we re focusing on at the moment is sap. those shares up by 1.5%. the major currencies the day after standard & poors downgraded its debt outlook for the first time in 70 years. what we have going on is the yen currently rising a little bit against the u.s. dollar. the euro currently trading at 1.4253 and the british found more or less flat against the u.s. dollar, 1.6267 at the moment, pauline? nina, here in asia we saw a substantial sell-off as i mentioned earlier, almost across the board when the markets opened this morning. that was largely a reaction to standard & poors outlook on the u.s. debt. nikkei down by more than 1.2%. investors were looking for safe havens like the yen and also gold. yen was trading at around 82.50