- Senior debt downgraded to 'A' from 'A+
- Trust preferred rating downgraded to 'A-' from 'A
- Commercial paper was affirmed at 'F1
- The rating actions follow the company's Q3 earnings announcement where details of deterioration in the company's investment portfolio as well as a plan to infuse capital into the life insurance operation were given. Specifically, through the first three quarters of 2008, Allstate reported a nearly $5B or 22% decline in stockholders' equity to $17B. More than $3B in pre-tax realized capital losses and a $6B unfavorable shift in pre-tax unrealized gains and losses were behind the year-to-date decline in equity.

Other headlines for [ALL]

• ALL 1/6/2009 07:15am
  Allstate Corp Hearing ALL, AIG, XL, TRV, CNA, ACE cut to Market Perform from Outperform at Bernstein; CB cut to Underperform from Outperform
  
• 12/23/2008 10:08am
  FTC orders nine insurers to provide information about the effects of credit based insurance scores on consumers- FTC is studying the affordability of homeowner and auto insurance
  
• ALL 12/10/2008 10:39am
  Allstate Corp CEO: Company Stock currently attractive, considering 'all acquisitions', foremost in areas where valuations have been brought down by market - conf comments- reiterates that co. has sufficient capital
  
• ALL 12/9/2008 11:31am
  Allstate Corp Allstate Financial unit names Ruebenson interim president & CEO
  
• HIG 11/12/2008 10:55pm
  The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc NYT reports various insurance firms such as Hartford and Lincoln Financial may not be eligible for TARP- The Treasury said that life insurers seeking capital under the TARP must be related to banks more...
  

Financials sector headlines

• CLMS Today 05:13pm
  Calamos Asset Management, Inc Announces it has cut 12% of workforce (about 40 jobs)
  
• LYG Today 04:45pm
  Lloyds TSB Group plc DoJ: Llyods TSB to pay $350M settlement over helping Iran and Sudan gain illegal banking access to US banking- the bank engaged in falsifying records that allowed access to countries that were more...
  
• EQR Today 04:10pm
  Equity Residential To take Q4 impairment charge of $0.39/shr due to reduced development activitiy, could implement more workforce reductions- The impairment charge is the difference between each parcels estimated fair more...
  
• GNW Today 04:05pm
  Genworth Financial Inc OTS: Application to be thrift holding company still pending
  
• IVZ Today 04:00pm
  Invesco Reports Dec AUM $357.2B v $348.0B m/m