Standard & Poor’s had downgraded 15 classes of bonds backed by a $425 million loan secured against the Four Seasons Hotel in New York and 3 other luxury resort hotels. The action was triggered by a drop in cash flow which was 46% below S&P expectations. Surely, the expected cash flow figure had already been [...]
Oct
14
Dow 10K: Celebrating 10 Years of 0% Return
Here’s a great email I received from a friend at Citibank this evening: Dow 10K: Celebrating 10 Years of 0% Return Congratulations investors. The Dow has hit 10,000 on October 14th, 2009. You now have made officially 0 percent return if you invested in this index when the Dow first hit this magical level in [...]
Sep
23
S&P DowngradeS 4 Month Old Re-REMIC
Just saw this post on Zero Hedge about a downgrade of a recent Re-REMIC issue by Standard & Poor’s. re-REMIC’s are repackaged mortgage-backed securities of a supposedly more secure pedigree as they were to have been constructed of securities identified to be of better quality and thus less likely to default. Now, just 4 months [...]
Jul
23
CMBS Scandal – Standard & Poor’s No Longer Credible?
There have been a handful of blog posts and various articles written about the curious decision of Standard & Poor’s to upgrade several commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) to a triple-A rating just one week after downgrading those same securities to junk or near-junk status of double-B and triple-B minus. What is interesting is that [...]