Wall Street Journal birti á þriðjudag í seinustu viku grein þess efnis að Moody’s Corp. hefði í hyggju breytingu á flokkunarkerfi sínu fyrir fjármála afurðir:

In an acknowledgment that the system it used to rate billions of dollars of mortgage-related securities was potentially flawed, Moody’s Corp. said it is considering a new way of rating those and other sometimes-volatile structured finance vehicles.

The credit-rating firm is considering an overhaul of its rating procedures that could include new labels to help investors distinguish collateralized debt obligations and other structured-finance investments from corporate bonds and Treasury securities.

One of the most significant changes being considered by the parent of Moody’s Investors Service: a new, 21-point numerical scale to rate structured securities. Moody’s familiar letter grades —

FRAMHALD á WSJ.com

Þetta kemur fram í ljósi þess að Moody’s (sem og S&P og Fitch) gáfu fullt af fjármála afurðum, RMBS, CDOs, CDS osfv. hæstu einkunn (AAA) einfaldlega vegna þess að útgefandi var með AAA einkunn. Bankarnir og miðlarar hrúguðu þessum afurðum síðan á fjárfesta á massa vís. Þessar afurðir hafa síðan í niðursveiflunni undanfarið misst allan botn undan sér hvað varðar verðmæti og fjöldinn allur af þeim jafnvel að tradea á undir 65 cent á dollarann….

Í kjölfar þessa eru “ratings” fyrirtækin einnig farin að lækka einkunnir þeirra fjármálastofnana sem gáfu út afurðirnar. Þarna er kominn fáranleg hringavitleysa enda gáfu “rating” stofnanirnar afurðunum þessa háu einkunn til að byrja með og núna þegar það reyndist ekki rétt vilja þeir lækka einkunn viðkomandi útgefanda….

Þær hugmyndir sem eru uppi eru varðandi þessar breytingar eru eftirfarandi:

1. Move to a completely new rating scale for structured securities, for example, numerical rankings of 1-21. These would continue to contain ordinal rankings of expected credit risk and would probably map to corporate ratings.

2. Add a modifier to all structured ratings utilizing the existing rating scale, e.g., Aaa.sf. This would designate the issue as structured, but add no other additional information.

3. Add a suffix to the existing rating scale for structured ratings that contains additional information – for example, estimates of multi-notch rating transition risk. This could be Aaa.v1, Aaa.v2, etc. We would derive these gradations through an analytical process that would be disclosed to the market.

4. Use the existing rating scale for structured securities, and put additional analytical information in a separate scale that would exist in a separate data field. For example, an issue could have a “Aaa rating, with a ratings change risk indicator of v1”. The added field would be analogous to our existing ratings outlooks and watchlists.

5. Make no changes to the rating scale, but provide additional information and commentary through written research.

Allar þessar hugmyndir eru frekar kjánalegar og tilkomnar bara til að þeir geti bent á einhverjar auka upplýsingar um að þetta sé AAA en samt ekki AAA eins og annað AAA…..

Barry Ritholtz fjallar um þetta á vefsíðu sinni þar sem hann svoleiðis ausir yfir þær breytingar sem Moody’s leggur til, sérstaklega hugmyndina um að þetta séu nokkurskonar viðvörunar miðar sem skellt verður á bréfin:

AND NOW THE SOLUTION PROPOSED BY THOSE SELF SAME RATING AGENCIES IS TO PUT A WARNING LABEL ON THEIR RATINGS?

Are you shitting me? Words fail me . . .

I’m thinking waterboarding the entire staff is the way to go with these criminal idiots, and instead, they think a mattress tag is a solution?

Well that’s just fine. I’ll write the warning for them:

WARNING: THESE BONDS HAVE BEEN RATED AAA BY A MAJOR RATING FIRM. THESE RATING FIRMS HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES TO BE CLUELESS, MONEY-LOSING INCOMPETENTS IN EXCESS OF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN LOSSES. THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY BY THE BOND UNDERWRITER, AND ARE HOPELESSLY COMPROMISED. PURCHASERS OF THESE BONDS ARE ADVISED TO IMMEDIATELY KILL THEMSELVES, THUS SPARING THEIR LOVED ONES EMBARRASSMENT IN THE FUTURE. ALSO, THESE BONDS MAY LOSE VALUE. I JUST WET MYSELF MERELY THINKING ABOUT THIS PAPER. WHILE PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RETURNS, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT PAST PERFORMANCE ALSO SUCKED. DONT BLAME US IF YOU LOSE ANY MONEY, AS WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE F$#@ WE ARE DOING ANYWAY. REALLY, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.

Now thats a disclosure . . .

Ekki er nóg með að Moody’s sé að gera þetta þá er S&P komnir í svipaðar pælingar.

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