downgrades displays a bell shape across credit rating classes concentrated in C5 and C6, with 505 and 597 downgrades, respectively. Downgrades per month also reach a peak in C6, at 13.77 per month. The average downgrade size depicts a monotonically decreasing relationship with credit rating risk, from the highest C1 of 2.29 to the lowest C9 of 1.00; the downgrade size in C9 is always equal to one, according to the definition. We further construct a calendar–time portfolio of stocks with downgrade events for each credit rating class to observe such a calendar–time portfolio return near downgrade announcements. Our evidence shows that markets react to downgrades of safe stocks and risk stocks differently. For risk stocks, the returns near downgrades experienced a sharp downturn one month before downgrades and an increase thereafter. For example, the average monthly returns of C9 were −4.59%, 0.89%, and 4.48% for the three consecutive months near downgrades, whereas the average monthly returns of C1 display an opposite