In an article published at The New York Times' The Dealbook, industry observer and journalist Floyd Norris said majority of the creditors do not take the credit for making bad decisions during the recent credit bubble in the US. Citing an example in financial services company Municipal Bond Insurance Association (MBIA), investors place their investment in securities without delving deeper into the risks associated with it.
MBIA filed a suit against Merill Lynch for lying about the quality of its loans that backed the securities the bond insurance company had invested in. Moreover, MBIA explained that if it did its research on the loans, the firm would be charging higher premiums. MBIA said its charges as low as USD77,500 per USD100 million of insurance.
"It would be enormously expensive, even if it were logistically feasible, for a credit insurer to investigate the health of these ground-level loans," MBIA argued in a suit.
Norris also cited two hedge funds of Bearns Stearns as another example. The hedge funds that went broke in 2007 insisted that its demise was not the fault of its managers. This was despite investing securities that were backed by a compounded, multi-step arrangement of securities and subprime mortgages. Trustees of the said funds pointed the blame on ratings agencies Standard & Poor's and Moody's and Fitch for providing incorrect credit ratings on its securities.
Although Norris had difficulty finding supporting research regarding the securities, his article implies that it takes to know where to look and setting criteria on what does it takes to make a bad investment.
However, the Bearns Stearns certainly endangered the business of ratings agencies that it questioned whether the ratings they provided could still be a solid factor to make a good decision.
Norris, however, said, "But even if the rating agencies are found to have acted wrongly, that in no way should absolve money managers from blame for investing billions of dollars in securities they knew little about."
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