From the category archives:

MBIA

Snapping Back to Reality

June 5, 2008

Moody’s has indicated that it might lower the ratings of monolines MBIA and Ambac. The possibility prompted New York Times columnist and blogger Floyd Norris to ask: Has anyone thought in recent months that either of those insurers deserved its AAA rating? Readers here will know we have harbored no such illusions. Last February, we [...]

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Memo to MBIA: Don’t Stop at the Rating Agencies. Why Not Choose Your Investors, Too?

March 10, 2008

MBIA, the monoline insurer, announced last week that it no longer wanted to be rated by Fitch Ratings, the only holdout on its AAA status. The move has opened up quite a Pandora’s box, especially for people who have been skeptical of the AAA ratings MBIA received from Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s. We have [...]

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Rating the Monolines: When ‘AAA’ Stretches Too Thin

February 26, 2008

Standard and Poor’s, the giant credit rating agency, affirmed the top “AAA” ratings of bond insurers Ambac and MBIA yesterday. What seems odd about this is that it’s as if the past six months, which saw the most seismic disruptions in the credit markets in generations, wiped out tens of billions from corporate balance sheets [...]

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