信用評級機腹的忽悠理由

有意思，由於信用評級機腹不負責任給出的過於樂觀的等級，造就了後來的美國房市瘋狂和次貸危機的爆發。而對於這些責任，信用評級機腹的理由居然是∶自己人手不夠，顧客要得急，競爭激烈，我不得不大致估計一下就給出了評級。而在大致估計的情況下，信用評級機腹為了保留自己的客戶和業務，自然是不可能給予太過不去的“分數”的。這樣的華爾街，你還敢相信嗎？

如果你不敢相信，那厶，你的投資決策又得基於什厶來進行呢？

記得年初時，華爾街的大佬們在建議投資者賣空百度，購買谷歌。當時百度410多的樣子，谷歌在620多。如果那時候你相信了，那厶，面對現在谷歌445美元的股價和百度645美元的高位的“倒錯”，你的虧損可就大了。

自己不排斥投資這兩家公司，現在也還是覺得至少應該關注它們。畢竟，在當代，它們還是科技行業的巨頭。而且，谷歌的股價也越來越便宜了，對於想投資的人來說，似乎還是件好事。但是，那種對沖和那厶大的看走眼，也是很有意思的。確實是不明白，水平那厶臭的“專業”人士，為什厶還有那厶多的人大把送錢給他們，留着他們在那裡忽悠自己。

華爾街和標準普都是一些靠不住的傢伙，基於他們的建議投資，你可得小心了。

下面是關於評級機腹在次貸危機產生中的責任說明和分析。

附錄∶Competition, lack of data drove flawed ratings

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- During the buildup to the financial crisis, major rating agencies Moody's Corp. and Standard & Poor's Inc. were understaffed, didn't have enough data about the mortgage securities they were rating and were pressured by each other and investment bankers to issue overly rosy ratings, a lawmaker said Friday.

"Had credit-rating agencies been more careful in issuing ratings or downgraded ratings in a more responsible manner, we maybe would have averted the crisis," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of an investigations subcommittee. "But they did not. Without credit ratings, Wall Street would have had a much harder time selling securities because they wouldn't have been considered safe."

Levin said his conclusions come after an 18-month investigation into some of the causes and consequences of the financial crisis. He discussed his findings in the third in a series of four hearings being held by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The investigation -- which reviewed hundreds of emails and interviews with officials at rating agencies -- revealed a world of overwhelmed analysts who didn't have enough data about securities they were rating and were under pressure from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) to issue good ratings for complex securities that were at the heart of the financial crisis.

Rating agencies have come under stinging criticism for their role in the financial crisis, in part because many of the leading firms gave their highest ratings (such as AAA) to problematic mortgage securities made up of subprime loans. Key agencies under scrutiny include Moody's (MCO), Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings Inc.

Levin's investigation found that 91% of AAA-rated, residential mortgage-backed securities issued in 2007 and 96% of similar securities issued in 2006 have now been downgraded to junk status.

"In July 2007, Moody's and S&P announced mass downgrades of hundreds of subprime mortgage-backed securities," the senator said. "Those downgrades shocked the markets; banks, pension funds and others were held holding billions of dollars on unmarketable securities, the value of those securities dropped and the financial crisis was on."

Levin also said that his investigation discovered that a major reason why rating agencies didn't "blow the whistle" on problematic mortgage securities earlier was because of competition. Each rater was concerned that negative ratings would drive investment banks to take their securities to other rating agencies.

Rating staff also were overwhelmed, understaffed and pressed by investment bankers to waive procedures and standards, as well as to remove analysts who "were not playing ball."

In one instance, Levin elaborated, investment bankers added more problematic securities at the last minute after an agency's review was nearly complete, complicating matters for raters.

Arturo Cifuentes, a former Moody's vice president, said a core problem is that rating agencies can determine the basis for their ratings. In fact, the SEC is barred by statute from overseeing the procedures and methodologies for credit-rating models.

"Rating agencies were given the right to determine the basis for their ratings," Cifuentes commented. "Raters can change what BBB means. It is screwed up at a very fundamental level."

Fear of disruption

Based on emails reviewed by the committee, Levin found that the credit raters not only didn't have enough data about the mortgages that made up the mortgage securities, but also they knew they didn't have that information.

He said these "years of internal emails" show Standard & Poor's knew that its model for evaluating collateralized debt obligations -- known as CDOs, a key contributor to the financial crisis -- was flawed, but the firm delayed changes because it knew a revised model could disrupt the markets.

"[S&P] knew that their revised model would require CDOs to be downgraded and disrupt the CDO market," he commented. "It would also have disrupted their profit from rating CDOs."

A CDO is a type of structured asset-backed security, whose value is derived from underlying assets such as mortgage-backed securities.

These CDO securities are at the heart of a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against Goldman Sachs. The SEC filed fraud charges against Goldman last week, alleging the firm didn't tell investors that hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. had helped structure the CDOs and was betting against it. Read about the suit.

A Moody's analyst, Eric Kolchinsky, who ran the division within Moody's that was examining the CDO mortgage-backed product, known as Abacus, said that neither he nor his staff were aware that Paulson & Co., which participated in the structure of the product, was betting against it.

"It's something that I would have wanted to know," Kolchinsky said.

Frank Raiter, a former managing director for mortgage-backed securities at Standard & Poor's, said the rating agencies should have come up with new credit-rating models for CDOs and other securities every six months, to keep up with efforts by investment bankers to "game the system" with changes to security structures.

Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., a member of the panel, pointed out that raters experienced a massive flood of new business during the buildup to the crisis, which the agencies were unable to handle.

"It's like you're owning a restaurant, and suddenly the number of people coming to eat there triples but you don't change the kitchen," he said. "There was a massive flood of new business."

Impact on bank reform?

Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Concept Capital in Washington, said he believed that rating agencies could be subject to new restrictions in the coming weeks -- beyond a package of regulations already included in bank-reform legislation. One possible measure could bar raters from linking bonuses and pay to specific ratings by analysts, he added.

"We continue to believe that Congress will not take the most radical step, which is to separate the payment for a rating from the hiring of a rater," Seiberg wrote in a report. "Yet we believe there is a growing risk that we could see lesser amendments attacking the raters during the financial-reform debate."

The reform legislation already has a number of restrictions on credit-rating agencies, including measures that improve the SEC's enforcement authority over rating agencies and one that subjects raters to investor lawsuits for failing to carry out their methodologies.

A House-approved bill would require each rater to set up a board of directors, of which one-third would be independent with little or no ties to the company. The legislation would bar rating firms from providing consulting services to companies they are also rating.

The subcommittee's fourth hearing, set for April 27, is scheduled to examine the role of investment banks in the crisis.