Warren Buffett bonds are no longer deemed as safe as a T-bills by the sages at Standard & Poor’s. Read more »
Credit Ratings
It’s bad enough that S&P has to go and defend itself against what it says are completely meritless allegations with regard to its totally up-and-up, if not-always-in-the-ballpark-of-accurate, credit ratings. But it’d really prefer not to have to hire local counsel in Denver, Des Moines, Hartford and 14 other remote hellholes that the states that are suing it insist on using as their seats of government. Read more »
Are we supposed to care about these downgrades? I like Glenn Schorr at Nomura, emphasis mine:
We think the net financial impact of these downgrades will be manageable as 1) potential collateral calls are small percentages of these firms’ liquidity pools; 2) counterparties have been preparing for this for some time and ratings downgrades have been an issue for the last 2+ years (there was little impact on Citi and BAC when they were downgraded back in September of 2011); 3) ratings are a relative game: given that Moody’s downgraded all capital markets firms, no single-firm is an outlier, so we don’t expect to see one company uniquely impacted. Yes, we get that counterparties looking to do long-dated derivatives might prefer a single-A rated entity, but as Basel III is implemented and more derivatives move to central clearinghouses, counterparty ratings should become less meaningful and clients will adapt (and not do all their business with JPM and GS).
It would be a serious misinterpretation of credit ratings to think of them as a global rank ordering of risks in the world. “A-rated things are of course safer than BBB-rated things,” you say, and get punched in the face repeatedly by life. A-rated things are not safer than BBB-rated things. A-rated RMBS CDOs were not safer than BBB-rated corporates, A-rated corporates are not safer than BBB-rated municipalities, and A-rated banks are it goes without saying not safer than BBB-rated software companies. Nobody really suggests otherwise – if they did, this graph would be a huge embarrassment to Moody’s: Read more »
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NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
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Sponsored Content
SoFi Answers the Call to Refinance Student Loans and Provides Unique Community Benefits
This is a guest post written by SoFi’s CEO, Mike Cagney.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk amongst leaders in Washington about how to improve the painful process of repaying student loans. At SoFi, we feel your pain and work hard to offer more flexible, more affordable options for our borrowers. One idea that’s getting a lot of attention is increasing the options for refinancing debt after graduation. The only lender currently focused on refinancing private and federal student loans is SoFi.
We recognized early on that borrowers who have made timely payments on their loans, graduated from school, and have a job should be able to refinance their student loans at a lower interest rate. This may be why, after resuming lending by invitation, the media became increasingly interested in what we are doing.
In a recent article posted on MainStreet.com SoFi General Counsel Rob Lavet had this to say about SoFi’s ReFi products: Read more »
You know what they say: You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your financial planner. Or something like that. One of the great things of being in charge of your money is choosing who (if anyone) will help you manage it. The choice isn’t always an easy one. How will you know that your planner is reputable and trustworthy?
These five red flags may be good indications of whether the financial planner sitting across from you is someone you should trust with your money. LearnVest Planning also provides an innovative 7-step program for your money where you work one-on-one with a financial planner. To see if this program is right for you, start with a free financial consultation.
1. She Isn’t Certified
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