joining us now, sean egan, founder and managing director of egan jones. sthawn, -- sean thanks for comig on the program. >> thank you. >> >> susie: tell us why your firm decided to down grade the u.s. credit rating. >> put iting on anything watch as of march 1st. we've been looking at it closely for the past year. basically we down graded because the debt to gdp for the u.s. has reached the point where we had to take enaction. in comparison, canada has a 35% roughly debt to gdp and the u.s. has about a 98% debt to gdp. got to the point where we felt as though we owed it to our institutional investor clients and we only serve institutional investors. that they needed to know how we felt about issuing the report. >> susie: do you think that the s&p ratings agency or moodies will follow your lisa in this respect? >> i'm not quite sure. they're seeing the same things we are. if there is substantial progress with the talks, they might take action. but actually, there are two separate issues. one is the raising of the debt ceiling so that bills can be paid. anot

if we don't do it, it will be a real shame. >> sean egan there speaking to maggie lake.eat shame for many people if the united states were to default in its debt. but it seems not for everyone. in fact, an american default would be a money maker for some investors who are currently betting against a debt ceiling deal. a small group of investors are currently wagering that washington will default on its debt and putting nearly $5 billion of money on the table in the form of credit default swaps. if you compare that with the investors who are betting on the success of the deal, the stakeholders are huge from hedge funds to the chinese government. together they currently hold more than $9 trillion of u.s. treasury bonds and they're counting on washington paying up when those investments are caused maturement. >>> across the atlantic the countdown for the london 2012 olympic games has begun as britain's capital appears to bask in the sport spotlight. we'll look at how the sit difficult that held the last games has changed. that's just ahead. like new sp™ no calorie sweetener