The co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. said on Thursday that the United States may eventually lose its ‘AAA’ credit rating.

The U.S. will be downgraded in “at least three to four years, if that, but the market will recognize the problems before the rating services – just like it did today,” Bill Gross told Reuters today.

Gross said that today’s U.S. markets drop were due to concerns by investors that the U.S. is “going the way of the UK – losing AAA rating which affects all financial assets and the dollar.”

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.54 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 1.68 percent.

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