Credit Ratings

Millions of Americans are witnessing a decline in their credit scores as the U.S. government recommences the collection of missed student loan payments. What Happened: The U.S. Department of Education has restarted the process of collecting overdue student loans, a move that has led to a drop...

Fitch Ratings raised alarms about the looming threat of rating reductions for numerous U.S. banks, with even giants such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) potentially in the crosshairs. Chris Wolfe, an analyst at Fitch, highlighted that while the agency lowered its outlook on the banking...

Risk assessment firm Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO) is downgrading the outlook on the U.S. banking sector following the collapse of several banks. The credit rating company is also out with calls on seven regional banks. What Happened: On Monday, Moody’s Investors Services announced...

Every so often, headlines of a credit rating downgrade will be followed by news of a 10 or 20 percent drop in a stock’s share price. While most long-time investors are familiar with the idea that credit rating upgrades are good and downgrades are bad, they are not all familiar with the...

Is there a risk of a subprime auto lending “bubble”? The New York Times raised that question in July, in a lengthy investigative article on its DealBook page. According to the article, the number of used-car auto loans -– mostly to people with bad or no credit -– has...

Strong Quarterly Results Citigroup (NYSE: C), 2010 Q3 Earnings were $.10 vs. $.07 consensus estimate. This is a 43% upside surprise beat. Q3 net income was $2.2 Billion dollars with revenues of $20.7 Billion dollars. Year-to-date, C is up over 41%, and holds a Tier 1 capital ratio of 10.3%. CEO...