Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) the owner of Google, now has a Standard & Poor’s credit rating on a par with the United States of America.
S&P moved on Wednesday to upgrade the stock to double A plus – which is the level to which it downgraded the USA in August 2011.
The rating reflects Alphabet’s consistently strong operating performance, despite a challenging and evolving digital advertising market, while it continues to maintain a conservative financial policy and strong liquidity profile,” S&P said.
It also means that on A&P metrics at least, Alphabet is just one notch away from the coveted triple A which is currently enjoyed by only two US stocks: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and John & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). US oil group ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) was stripped of its long-held triple-A rating last year.
Ratings are key for things like measuring the creditworthiness of a stock and determine at what rate of interest companies can borrow funds. The higher the rating, ceteris paribus, the lower the borrowing costs.
Alphabet shares were up 0.3% at $851.36 in late Wednesday trading.