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Tuesday, July 08, 2008

On SEC Probe of Rating Agencies

by Calculated Risk on 7/08/2008 02:55:00 PM

From Bloomberg: SEC Probe of Raters Reveals Conflicts in Grading Debt (hat tip DD49)

A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into credit-rating companies found the firms improperly managed conflicts of interest and violated internal procedures in granting top rankings to mortgage bonds.
What a surprise. And the article provides this email:
The SEC report details an e-mail in which an analyst at an unidentified credit-rating company refers to the market for collateralized debt obligations as a ``monster.''

``Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters,'' said the e-mail, which was sent Dec. 15, 2006, to another analyst at the same firm.
Nice.