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Blaming Moody’s
ritholtz.com - 12/7/2008
Blaming Moody’s
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“These errors make us look either incompetent at credit analysis or like we sold our soul to the devil for revenue, or a little bit of both.” — A Moody’s managing director responding anonymously to an internal management survey, September 2007. > The Sunday NYT has a big Gretchen ...
High Anxiety About High Yield
dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com - 12/5/2008
High Anxiety About High Yield
— dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com — Junk bond peddlers should have taken a vacation in November. That’s because there were no — count ‘em, zero — high-yield corporate bond deals done last month on the entire planet, according to data from Thomson Reuters. That is ... (more) High Anxiety About High Yield

Comments vote down FT Alphaville found this 12/5/2008found this
Rubber Stamp Agencies
economistsview.typepad.com - 12/11/2008
Rubber Stamp Agencies
— economistsview.typepad.com — Ratings agencies are supposed to solve market failures, not create them. The market failure arises because in most cases it's prohibitively costly for individual investors to collect and analyze the information they need to make informed judgments ... (more) Rubber Stamp Agencies

Comments vote down Newmark's Door found this 12/11/2008found this

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Bear Mountain Bull:  Ripping the Raters

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Ripping the Raters
Bear Mountain Bull — And they deserve every bit of ripping they get. And then some. The Big Picture discusses a NYT article on the tremendous ‘contributions’ of the ratings agencies to the financial mess that we’re in: “These errors make us look either incompetent at credit analysis or like we sold our soul to the devil for revenue, or a little bit of both.” — A Moody’s managing director responding anonymously to an internal management survey, September 2007. Or maybe a LOT of both.

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Buffett Dumps Moody’s (MCO, BRK-A)
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Motorola: It’s Junk, Says S&P — BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily 12/5/2008
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Sprint: Moody’s Downgrades Debt To Junk — BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily 12/10/2008
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