As reported by Reuters, the so-called congressional “Super Committee” failed to reach a deal on reducing the federal government’s deficits today. Following similar events at the end of July, when the American government came close to defaulting on part of its debt due to a deadlock in negotiations over a new debt ceiling, the US credit rating was downgraded by S&P from AAA to AA+ on August 5th and markets all over the world took a plunge.

Today international stock markets closed down already, probably because the bad news from the Congressional Budget Office have been anticipated. This won’t stop markets from also opening down tomorrow, however.