U.S. President Barack Obama signs the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Barack Obama signs the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, August 2, 2011. U.S. Senate approval on a 74 to 26 vote of the $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan, already passed on Monday by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, drove away the immediate specter of a catastrophic U.S. debt default. President Barack Obama immediately signed the bill into law, lifting the government's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling hours before a Tuesday midnight deadline. But the rancorous debt and deficit battle between his Democrats and their Republican rivals left Obama politically bruised as he heads into a campaign for a second term in 2012. Reuters

Fitch, the smallest of the major bond rating agencies, said the U.S. still carries a triple-A rating, 11 days after Standard & Poor's downgraded it.

"The key pillars of U.S.'s exceptional creditworthiness remains intact: its pivotal role in the global financial system and the flexible, diversified and wealthy economy that provides its revenue base," Fitch said.

The rating agency put a "stable" outlook on the U.S. rating. Earlier, Moody's Investor Service, while maintaining a triple-A rating, had put a "negative" outlook on the U.S. after S&P lowered its ratings on the U.S. to AA+ from triple-A. That downgrade caused tumult on global markets last week.

Fitch also said it would closely monitor deliberations of the Joint Select Committee of Congress on deficit reduction. That committee is scheduled to report by mid-November under terms of the deficit reduction law signed by President Obama on Aug. 2. It is charged with finding as much as $2.4 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years.

Fitch, based in New York and London, also discussed its sovererign rating methodology, which is used to make country determinations. It said the method explores factors that make an economy more or less viable to shocks,political risk, finances and ability to repay public debt.

Wall Street was not as mindful of the Fitch rating as it had been of S&P's downgrade. The S&P 500 Index fell about 1% in early Tuesday trading.

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