Credit ratings

Moody's cuts gold price to $1,110; miners at risk

Paul Ploumis
January 9, 2014
Moody’s Credit Rating reflected a weakened outlook of gold as it reduced its assumption for gold price in the next couple of years. Cutting its Gold price forecast for the year, Moody’s Investor’s Service said that the credit ratings of the Canada’s largest precious metal producers are at a risk.

SEC plans push to cut credit rating references, Gallagher says

October 25, 2013
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is nearing adoption of rules for cutting references to credit ratings from regulations including those determining how much capital a broker must hold to meet obligations.

Why would anyone buy credit default swaps on the U.S.?

Matt Levine, Bloomberg
September 26, 2013
"Why would anyone buy credit default swaps on the U.S. government? If the U.S. ever defaulted it would be because the world ended, so no one would be around to pay you on your CDS," is a thing that people more or less used to say.

Gross says investors shouldn’t trust Moody’s on U.S. AAA rating

John Detrixhe and Matt Robinson, Bloomberg
September 25, 2013
Investors shouldn’t trust the opinion of Moody’s Investors Service on the U.S.’s Aaa rating and should rely instead on the company’s competitors, according to Pacific Investment Management Co. founder Bill Gross.

S&P raises puffery defense at U.S. case’s first court test

Edvard Pettersson, Bloomberg
July 8, 2013
Standard & Poor’s, at the first court hearing over the U.S. government’s claims that the rating service defrauded investors, argued reasonable investors wouldn’t have relied on its “puffery” about credit ratings.

Alcoa junk downgrade is rare trauma for Dow stocks

Lu Wang and Sonja Elmquist, Bloomberg
June 5, 2013
Alcoa Inc.’s speculative-grade credit ranking at Moody’s Investors Service makes it only the second junk-rated Dow Jones Industrial Average company in at least three decades. It took four years for the first to be ejected.

Fitch cuts China yuan debt rating on local government loans

Bloomberg News
April 9, 2013
Fitch Ratings Ltd. cut China’s long-term local-currency debt rating, citing increasing risks to the country’s financial stability given the lack of transparency in the increased borrowing of local governments.

Fitch says top AAA sovereign ratings under pressure in 2013

Emma Charlton, Bloomberg
January 15, 2013
Fitch Ratings said its AAA credit rankings on France, the U.S. and the U.K. are likely to come under pressure this year due to slow economic growth and high debt levels.

Moody’s gets no respect as bonds shun 56% of country ratings

John Detrixhe and Matt Robinson, Bloomberg
December 17, 2012
The global bond market disagreed with Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s more often than not this year when the companies told investors that governments were becoming safer or more risky.

S&P ordered by Japan financial watchdog to improve rating system

Takahiko Hyuga and Shigeru Sato, Bloomberg
December 14, 2012
Standard & Poor’s Japan unit was ordered by the nation’s financial watchdog to improve its system for verifying and updating credit ratings in the regulator’s first action against a ratings company.