信用评级机构的忽悠理由

有意思，由于信用评级机构不负责任给出的过于乐观的等级，造就了後来的美国房市疯狂和次贷危机的爆发。而对于这些责任，信用评级机腹的理由居然是∶自己人手不够，顾客要得急，竞争激烈，我不得不大致估计一下就给出了评级。而在大致估计的情况下，信用评级机腹为了保留自己的客户和业务，自然是不可能给予太过不去的“分数”的。这样的华尔街，你还敢相信吗？

如果你不敢相信，那厶，你的投资决策又得基于什厶来进行呢？

记得年初时，华尔街的大佬们在建议投资者卖空百度，购买谷歌。当时百度410多的样子，谷歌在620多。如果那时候你相信了，那厶，面对现在谷歌445美元的股价和百度645美元的高位的“倒错”，你的亏损可就大了。

自己不排斥投资这两家公司，现在也还是觉得至少应该关注它们。毕竟，在当代，它们还是科技行业的巨头。而且，谷歌的股价也越来越便宜了，对于想投资的人来说，似乎还是件好事。但是，那种对冲和那厶大的看走眼，也是很有意思的。确实是不明白，水平那厶臭的“专业”人士，为什厶还有那厶多的人大把送钱给他们，留著他们在那里忽悠自己。

华尔街和标准普都是一些靠不住的家伙，基于他们的建议投资，你可得小心了。

下面是关于评级机腹在次贷危机产生中的责任说明和分析。

附录∶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.