Thursday, November 27, 2008

"Instead they are rating based on public relations."

Accrued Interest has an important post about how the Credit Ratings Agencies, as I've said, are erring now in being too tough on companies:

"Here is the problem with Moody's stance. It has nothing to do with their actual view of municipal insurance. Its painfully obvious that this is nothing more than CYA. Its like a referee doing a make-up call. They completely screwed up structured finance ratings from 2002-2007 or there abouts. And thus they have a lot of egg on their face in regards to FGIC, Ambac, MBIA, etc.

So now they want to act all tough and refuse to give Aaa ratings to monolines under any circumstances. Does this make any more sense than when they were giving out Aaa like business cards? Aren't they essentially making Assured Guaranty pay for the sins of FGIC?

Consider this. Let's say that a new municipal insurer is created and that insurer acquires all the municipal policies from Ambac. Now let's say that the new insurer has enough capital such that if it immediately went into run off, it could pay all realistic potential premiums with a significant cushion. What is "realistic" and "significant" in the previous sentence would need to be defined, but there is no reason why Moody's can't come up with those numbers.

Why can't such a firm be rated Aaa?

Notice how in the above scenario, the firm's ability to generate new revenue isn't relevant. The firm's ability to raise new capital isn't relevant. Its simply does the firm right now have adequate capital to pay its liabilities. Why is that concept so unreasonable?

For Moody's to claim they cannot rate on this basis is a total cop out, because this is exactly how all securitized deals are rated. A securitization is always a closed loop. The ratings have to be based on available capital versus expected losses. Obviously mistakes were made in rating securitized deals in recent years. But for Moody's to claim they cannot rate on such a basis is complete bullshit. Do we need to alter our models? Absolutely. But Moody's cannot on one hand claim to be a competent ratings agency and on the other hand claim they can't estimate muni losses versus available capital.

Municipal insurance benefited both investors and municipalities. Now it will die, all because Moody's doesn't have the courage to rate insurers based on dollars and cents. Instead they are rating based on public relations."

Here's my comment:

Don said...

"So now they want to act all tough and refuse to give Aaa ratings to monolines under any circumstances. Does this make any more sense than when they were giving out Aaa like business cards? Aren't they essentially making Assured Guaranty pay for the sins of FGIC?"

It made sense going up, because they made a lot more money. It makes sense going down because they were trading on their reputation going up, and they're trying to get it back now. In doing so, they are abetting, once again, not focusing on fundamentals.

The model here is broken. I be interested if you have read this, or I've missed your ideas on this problem:

http://www.glgroup.com/News/White-Paper-on-Rating-Competition-and-Structured-Finance-(Part-1)-23549.html

Don the libertarian Democrat

I didn't get a reply, or I would have posted it.

3 comments:

Kitty said...

Hi Don... Happy Thanksgiving... nice post on etymology you have below... and the Adams one is magnifico... "save for the fast" funny how destiny is...

Raters... raters... raters...

Competition would work fine in this space is the raters had access to equivialant information...

Nobody is doing structured deals now... gonzo... I'm sure they will be back when everyone has forgotten this sorry period that we have just passed through.

I really question how transparent the balance sheets of financial firms are to the raters... how come C, Lehman, ML, GS, MS, AIG et al had high ratings at the time the Fed/Treasury bailed them out?

I understand for the raters that have to rely on public reporting...

But the big raters have the ability to get nonpublic info... and they know the value of the junky stuff that the finfirms had on balance sheet... and off balance sheet.

I don't understand this idea >>

"Increased competition can lead to a race to the bottom..."

Issuers pay the firms who give them the best rating...

Many investors pay for the most accurate analysis... look at Credit Sights... voted best rater... they are tough guys who want to expose the truth.

Everybody has conflicts... markets, at their best, mash up all the conflicts and allocate resources according to value.

Making the raters a government cartel would be useless... look at the NAIC ratings stuff... useless... and worse, if a government cartel, it would be like communism with the government making capital allocation decisions. And we know that other "political" decisions would come in like the automaker bailout talks now.

The bond insurance thing is hokey... a legacy of structural imperfections in the old system. If ratings are made by many raters with equel access to information then risk and return will get priced more accurately.

~~~~Don't get too stuffed~~~~~

Donald Pretari said...

Cate, I hope you're having a nice day. I'm a bit frazzled, because I just finished the post on Nick and Buiter, which, after the Bernanke, is killing me.

I've got a migraine today as well, and am taking Vicodin. I'm going to my mother's after a walk, where I'll be with more relatives. I probably will eat a fair amount. I don't eat meat, so my mother is having salmon, which I love.

I'm going to come back to your points later. I'm guessing that you read that Fons post.It was strange to me as well, but this whole credit ratings deal is counter-intuitive to me.

I thought that the raters are a cartel, that was the problem, and that the entry fee was too high to allow competition. Fons seems to believe that's possible.

So, I think we're on the same page. I'm assuming you've seen the Waldmann and Fons.

Just tell me how we can allow entry into the ratings game.That's all I'm looking for, and, remember, it was Waldmann who told me that it was impossible, and Fons seemed to say it was very hard.

One thing, and then maybe I'll post other questions to you later:

Is there any way that the whole ratings deal is phony? In other words, when I buy bonds, why have ratings? Why can't people give estimated rates of default? It must make buying and selling easier, so is the cost of that a perpetual fuzzy rating system? Give me the rationale for this system of ratings even existing. That should only take you a treatise or two.

Take care, Don

PS I agree with you that they'll be back

Maybe you should have a blog on this, or guest post on mine

Kitty said...

Hi Don...

Thanksgiving salmon sounds excellent ... I went to a friends who roasted a locally raised organic turkey... gobble... gobble...

Sorry about your migraine and the vicodin... I hope you get some relief from the medicine.. my Mother is on morphine... I tell her silly stories to get her to laugh...help her feel love to keep the fear away...

+ + +

I do have a blog... www.shopyield.com

and I cross post on Seeking Alpha which I should do more often... I haven't written much about the raters lately... it is a complex situation... a weak legacy system deeply interwoven with many parts of the financial system... the SEC has been formulating final rules for the raters... should see them Weds...responses to your questions here...

"Is there any way that the whole ratings deal is phony?"

Kinda... ratings are not physical measurements like ounces or weight measures like pounds... ratings are just "opinions"... raters gather as much data as possible and generate a construct (model!) to weigh their observed and inferred observations about a firm and generate a "relative" view of the risk of that firm defaulting... so if you think "opinions" are phony then ratings are phony!

"In other words, when I buy bonds, why have ratings? Why can't people give estimated rates of default?"

I think it would be difficult for all but the top 10 or 20 market partcipants to estimate rates of default... gathering and processing all the data needed is too expensive and complex...

"...It must make buying and selling easier, so is the cost of that a perpetual fuzzy rating system?"

Sure does make buy/sell easier... all credit pricing is done on a matrix with ratings on one axis and term/maturity on the other axis...

As for "perpetual fuzzy rating system" I see many information points as *fuzzy* like legal opinions ... auditing... judging for gymnastics competition... all those things are relative opinions about the truth, value, or dexterity of what is being evaluated... I think it might be a little much to expect ratings to be a fixed "truth".

"Give me the rationale for this system of ratings even existing. That should only take you a treatise or two..."

Well dear Don we don't exist in a perfect world... we swim around the misshapen remnants of those who came before us... I hope we have the chance to make some small improvement to the flow of it all...

Thanks for your excellent blog and a chance to give my opinions. I hope you feel better.