As markets pick up after the summer lull, here we provide a recap of rating activity and pricing trends during July and August, as well as links to key publications you may have missed. In August, downgrades outnumbered upgrades, following a benign July. Financial institutions and consumer producers featured prominently among the downgrades, while metals and mining showed the sharpest rise in the negative bias. Yet there were six rising stars over the summer, two each in the media and entertainment and homebuilder/real estate sectors, and one each in aerospace/defense and oil and gas.