Sentence of the Day

From Bloomberg:

Standard & Poor’s analysts questioned their own ratings of mortgage-related debt products and said they were overworked as the number of deals increased, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a draft version of a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission report.
In one e-mail, an unidentified S&P analytical staffer wrote that a mortgage or structured-finance deal was “ridiculous” and “we should not be rating it,” the Journal said, citing the 38-page draft SEC report.
A colleague replied, “we rate every deal,” the newspaper said, citing the report. “It could be structured by cows and we would rate it,” the colleague wrote, the Journal said.

I’d really like to see an email from folks who structured a deal in reference to the rating agencies.

Posted by on August 4th, 2008 at 11:29 am


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