nissan motor co shares fell sharply wednesday morning after its credit rating was cut to speculative grade by sp global ratings the shares were recently 31 lower at 5480 yen after falling as much as 35 in earlier trade the nikkei stock average was recently up 03 sp on tuesday lowered its longterm issuer credit ratings on nissan by one notch to bb from bbb moving it from the lowest level of investment grade to speculative grade often referred to as junk status the rating company said that nissans profit margin and sales volume which have been weak over the past couple of years were unlikely to improve soon to the levels that the rating company had previously assumed sp also said it remains uncertain on whether nissan will be able to secure a foothold in the rapidly growing global electricvehicle market moodys investors service rates nissan at baa3 the lowest investmentgrade rating with a stable outlook japans rating and investment information inc has an a rating with a negative outlook in february nissan lowered its forecast for global car sales for the fiscal year ending in march to 34 million vehicles from its previous view of 37 million citing a shortage of chips nissan then kept its fiscalyear revenue and netprofit forecasts unchanged it projected revenue to increase 29 to y10900 trillion 7948 billion and net profit to fall 28 to y15500 billion this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal