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The credit rating is a financial indicator to potential investors of debt securities such as bonds.These are assigned by credit rating agencies such as Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, which publish code designations (such as AAA, B, CC) to express their assessment of the risk quality of a bond.
A sovereign credit rating is the credit rating of a sovereign entity, such as a national government. The sovereign credit rating indicates the risk level of the investing environment of a country and is used by investors when looking to invest in particular jurisdictions, and also takes into account political risk.
Credit rating is a highly concentrated industry, with the "Big Three" credit rating agencies controlling approximately 95% of the ratings business. [3] Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's (S&P) together control 80% of the global market, and Fitch Ratings controls a further 15%.
Investors who had trusted the AAA rating to mean that CDO were low-risk had purchased large amounts that later experienced staggering drops in value or could not be sold at any price. For example, institutional investors lost $125 million on $340.7 million worth of CDOs issued by Credit Suisse Group, despite being rated AAA by S&P. [21] [20]
Together, they are sometimes referred to as the Big Three credit rating agencies. While credit rating agencies are sometimes viewed as interchangeable, Moody's, S&P and Fitch in fact rate bonds differently; for example, S&P and Fitch Ratings measure the probability that a security will default, while Moody's ratings seek to measure the expected losses in the event of a default. [7]
A BBB-accredited company agrees to abide by a set of accreditation standards BBB says are "attributes of a better business." These include honesty in advertising, transparency, and responsiveness ...
For Fitch, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB− or higher. Bonds rated BB+ and below are considered to be speculative grade, sometimes also referred to as "junk" bonds. [104] Fitch Ratings typically does not assign outlooks to sovereign ratings below B− (CCC and lower) or modifiers.
Fitch Ratings Inc. is an American credit rating agency and is one of the "Big Three credit rating agencies", [3] the other two being Moody's and Standard & Poor's. It is one of the three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations ( NRSRO ) designated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1975.