FT Story Hammers Moody's Stock
The stock market has spoken: Moody's shares are down 14% today in the wake of the ratings scandal uncovered by the FT.
Portfolio did a good job of rounding up the reactions, including a unwisely dismissive piece by the WSJ's Aaron Lucchetti simply parroting the company line. Weirdly, no one seems to be picking up on what I consider the smoking gun: while the likes of Tanta and Alea and Yves Smith and Andrew Leonard all basically get the story right, none of them mentions the most damning quote of all.
...Documents show that three methodological changes were proposed, but only two were adopted. The third was ditched because it "did not help the rating." Of the two changes which were made, the document states: "the impact of our code issue after those improvements is then reduced."






