- Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international financial research on bondsissued by commercial and government entities and, with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies.
- The company ranks the creditworthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale which measures expected investor loss in the event of default. Moody's Investors Service rates debt securities in several market segments related to public and commercial securities in the bond market. These include government, municipal and corporate bonds; managed investments such as money market funds, fixed-income funds and hedge funds; financial institutions including banks and non-bank finance companies; and asset classes in structured finance. In Moody's Investors Service's ratings system securities are assigned a rating from Aaa to C, with Aaa being the highest quality and C the lowest quality.
- Moody's was founded by John Moody in 1909 to produce manuals of statistics related to stocks and bonds and bond ratings. In 1975, the company was identified as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Following several decades of ownership by Dun & Bradstreet, Moody's Investors Service became a separate company in 2000; Moody's Corporation was established as a holding company.
Moody's credit ratings
According to Moody's, the purpose of its ratings is to "provide investors with a simple system of gradation by which future relative creditworthiness of securities may be gauged". To each of its ratings from Aa through Caa, Moody's appends numerical modifiers 1, 2 and 3; the lower the number, the higher-end the rating. Aaa, Ca and C are not modified this way. As Moody's explains, its ratings are "not to be construed as recommendations", nor are they intended to be a sole basis for investment decisions. In addition, its ratings don’t speak to market price, although market conditions may impact credit risk..
| Moody's credit ratings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Investment grade | ||
| Rating | Long-term ratings | Short-term ratings |
| Aaa | Rated as the highest quality and lowest credit risk. | Prime-1 Best ability to repay short-term debt |
| Aa1 | Rated as high quality and very low credit risk. | |
| Aa2 | ||
| Aa3 | ||
| A1 | Rated as upper-medium grade and low credit risk. | |
| A2 | Prime-1/Prime-2 Best ability or high ability to repay short term debt | |
| A3 | ||
| Baa1 | Rated as medium grade, with some speculative elements and moderate credit risk. | Prime-2 High ability to repay short term debt |
| Baa2 | Prime-2/Prime-3 High ability or acceptable ability to repay short term debt | |
| Baa3 | Prime-3 Acceptable ability to repay short term debt | |
| Speculative grade | ||
| Rating | Long-term ratings | Short-term ratings |
| Ba1 | Judged to have speculative elements and a significant credit risk. | Not Prime Do not fall within any of the prime categories |
| Ba2 | ||
| Ba3 | ||
| B1 | Judged as being speculative and a high credit risk. | |
| B2 | ||
| B3 | ||
| Caa1 | Rated as poor quality and very high credit risk. | |
| Caa2 | ||
| Caa3 | ||
| Ca | Judged to be highly speculative and with likelihood of being near or in default, but some possibility of recovering principal and interest. | |
| C | Rated as the lowest quality, usually in default and low likelihood of recovering principal or interesT | |
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