Moody's Investors Service
| Moody's | |
| |
| Founded | 1900 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | USA |
| Key People | Raymond McDaniel - Chief Executive Officer |
| Products | Credit ratings and investor research |
| Website | www.moodys.com |
Moody's Investors Service is a source for credit ratings, research and risk analysis. In addition to its core ratings business, Moody’s provides research data and analytic tools for assessing credit risk, and publishes market-leading credit opinions, deal research and commentary. It serves more than 9,300 customer accounts at some 2,400 institutions around the globe.[1]
History[edit]
Entrepreneur John Moody published Moody's Manual of Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities in 1900, the same year he founded John Moody & Company. The manual provided information and statistics on stocks and bonds of financial institutions, government agencies, manufacturing, mining, utilities, and food companies. It sold out within two months. By 1903, Moody's Manual was known all over the U.S.
Moody was forced to sell the manual business when the stock market crashed in 1907. He returned to the financial market in 1909, offering investors analysis of security values in addition to statistical information on companies. He began publishing Moody's Analyses of Railroad Investments, which analyzed the railroads and their outstanding securities and offered conclusions about their quality.
In 1913, Moody & Co. launched an evaluation of industrial companies and utilities. By that time, the "Moody's ratings" had become a factor in the bond market. On July 1, 1914, Moody's Investors Service was incorporated. That same year, Moody began expanding rating coverage to bonds issued by U.S. cities and other municipalities. By 1924, Moody's ratings covered nearly 100 percent of the U.S. bond market.
Moody's continued to publish and monitor ratings during The Depression, and in the 1970s, the ratings were extended to the commercial paper market and bank deposits.[2]
In early June of 2010, billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Moody's Corp. were scheduled to face questions from a bipartisan panel probing the roots of the financial crisis. Rating agencies like Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings had been criticized for giving unrealistically high ratings to complex investments backed by risky mortgages and other assets.[3]
Products and Services[edit]
Key People[edit]
- Raymond McDaniel - Chief Executive Officer
References[edit]
- ↑ Moody's Role in the Capital Markets. Moody's.
- ↑ Moody's History. Moodys.com.
- ↑ Buffett To Front Financial Crisis Probe. Yahoo! Finance.