Talk:Moody's Corporation

History of this Institution

In my opinion this should really be the focus of the article! When did it start to get big, how did it gain so much influence, and when did incorporate?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.176.18.59 (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be an omission in the "History" paragraph. John Moody published "Moody's Manual of Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities" in 1900. The company went bankrupt - or, as Moody's puts it "did not have adequate capital to survive" - in the stock market crash of 1907. In 1909, Moody made a fresh start, publishing "Analyses of Railroad Investments". See http://www.moodys.com/Pages/atc001.aspx

Copyright violations removed

I removed blatant word for word copypasta Copyright violations of Moody's text and adjusted the rest (also blatant copypasta copyvio) to a more acceptable level. I also added a freely available Moody's cite for several ratings. The article could still do with a copyedit. 84user (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed biased language

I deleted the following language from the beginning of the History section: "Moody's as his main rival, is well known for it's poor criteria while deciding what is quality and what it isn't. Examples as the the Aaa qualification of Lehman Brother's before it collapsed, or the Madoff's products. However, even if unable to predict the crisis, it's able to use it and manipulate, while arbitrarily and unfairly decided to attack the eurozone for their own purposes, without caring about the life standards and quality of their habitants. This agency follows the following formula: Low quality research + corruption + non reasonable criteria."

I believe it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, and does not match the style guide. Kagee12000 (talk) 02:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"Too much power and influence?" section

I haven't made any changes to it, but I think that the first two paragraphs of this section should either be substantially rewritten or deleted. They contain original research (or at least unsubstantiated claims) and violate the neutral point of view policy. In addition, I think that the section title should be removed, and if these two paragraphs are kept, they should be rolled into the criticism section above. 202.20.3.68 (talk) 03:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this section is not written from a neutral point of view. There is plenty of well-sourced material that should definitely be included in the criticism section, including parts of what's in here, but as it stands now it reads like editorializing. I recommend getting rid of this section and beefing up the criticism section. Nwlaw63 (talk) 19:09, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Thirded, removed the initial paragraph as it contained no sources and provided none of the actual ill effects brought from moody's downgrading of Greek bonds to junk status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.142.75 (talk) 16:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that "too much power and influence" should be removed and replaced with a more neutrally-titled "criticisms" section141.160.5.251 (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

"Criticism" section

Removed "It gave Aaa qualification of Lehman Brothers before it collapsed", since Lehman Brothers was never rated Aaa at any point in history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.14.227.224 (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No they had AA ratings, and also AIG had AAA .This is backed by a congress hearing. I added a note and reference on this. Pweltz (talk) 12:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I removed a bit of an enthousiastic statement on 'financial terrorism' by Moody's. Hope we can agree on that. WijzeWillem (talk) 20:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Well... it will be very difficult to agree on that for many people, because it seems they are only a bunch of incompetents "economists", used by some type of "magnats in the dark" power, to try to wreck the european economies with the influence of his qualifications based on nothing serious, just when USA has an infamous terrible debt of trillions of dollars and it seems they didn't say nothing about that. But well... you can try it if you want, XD.

Why this guys have the attention of the media? who are they? they are an agency of UN? of USA? of EU? they are any type of public institute of any country? NO, they are just a privat corporation created and governed by privat interests, so... they are doing financial terrorism when they say that a country have a "garbage bonds", specially if this country is making a reforms of it's economical system and have the scort of EU (like Greece, and specially Portugal or Ireland), to ironically satisfy the markets and the neoliberal system who caused the actual global crysis. Or at least, that seems to me and many people.

Greetings, and very sorry for my "extra" poor english expression. --Tangopolis (talk) 00:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Disclosure before editing

I am about to make a couple of small changes to this page, which I believe are obviously helpful, and likely fall under the category of non-controversial edits. The reason I mention it at all is because I have a potential conflict of interest with Moody's, as they have asked me to see how this and other articles about the company can be improved. Later I will probably have more substantial changes, but my plan for anything much more substantial will be to ask for input and seek consensus for them rather than making direct edits first. Don't hesitate to reach me at my discussion page if you have any questions. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Disputed neutrality

Following on my note from yesterday, I've just put {{POV-section}} warning templates on two sections within this article. These are "Power and influence" and "Portugal controversy". Not to say that Moody's has not been the subject of criticism; it has been and there is place for that here. However, the former section has tone problems, focuses on one particular complaint, and more than half of the text is quoted directly from the Washington Post. The topic heading also does not have much to do with the actual content. The latter section is at least appropriately named, but makes assertions unsupported by the source material, and is written from a very strong viewpoint. Because of my relationship to Moody's I have to be really careful about this, but if you agree these two sections do not follow Wikipedia guidelines, please review them and make any changes you see fit. I hope to have some specific recommendations in the near future, but for now I simply wanted to flag this for readers and editors. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 20:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mysidae, I stumbled across this wikipage and since I am allergic to desputed neutrality statements, I read on. After reading and following the links/footnotes, I decided to remove two of your tags: the citation needed and by whom tags in the "Portugal controversy". Both these tags, as the rest of that particular sentence are answered in footnote 11 from Reuter. I would post a link to it here, but I can't seem to get it to work, sorry. The rest of your edits I kept intact. Best wishes, Vachnic (talk) 23:29, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Um well, hi again. I found another tag in the same section. Again, your question is answered in the footnotes (12 + 13 this time) (if you can muddle through the coding errors on the Economic Newspaper site) Vachnic (talk) 23:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello Vachnic, thanks for your notes. I looked through the changes since my previous update on Friday, and actually it seems you've removed some inline tags added by a subsequent editor. The issues I described in my comment above, particularly the style and tone problems, remain an issue and probably require some expert attention. I appreciate your note, and hope you can be of help on this page, Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 13:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I have added the missing sources to the "Portugal controversy" section. These are four Moody's press releases all stating that the ratings downgrade of those state owned companies was motivated by the downgrade of Portugal's rating (as per Moody's policy) and does not reflect the actual company financial profile. Also see http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ana.pt%2Fportal%2Fpage%2Fportal%2FANA%2FPAGINA_CONTINUIDADE_IMPRENSA%2F%3Fcboui%3D108186123%26IMP_CT%3D108186123 (translated from Portuguese). Quasar (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Insider Facts

"

• Moody's ratings often do not reflect its analysts' private conclusions. Instead, rating committees privately conclude that certain securities deserve certain ratings--but then vote with management to give the securities the higher ratings that issuer clients want.
• Moody's management and "compliance" officers do everything possible to make issuer clients happy--and they view analysts who do not do the same as "troublesome." Management employs a variety of tactics to transform these troublesome analysts into "pliant corporate citizens" who have Moody's best interests at heart.
• Moody's product managers participate in--and vote on--ratings decisions. These product managers are the same people who are directly responsible for keeping clients happy and growing Moody's business.
• At least one senior executive lied under oath at the hearings into rating agency conduct. Another executive, who Harrington says exemplified management's emphasis on giving issuers what they wanted, skipped the hearings altogether.

"

• MOODY'S ANALYST BREAKS SILENCE: Says Ratings Agency Rotten To Core With Conflicts businessinsider.com.84.147.102.235 (talk) 21:16, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

New Moody's version

To any editor who happens to be watching this page: I have been working for several months on researching and writing a new version of this article, and I have just posted this draft to a subpage in my userspace here: User:Mysidae/Moody's

Right up front I should mention that I work with Moody's, and I am well aware of Wikipedia's COI rules, so I would like to seek a general consensus from editors about replacing the current article with the one I've prepared.

I may not need to say much about the problems with the current article, but the current one is quite short compared to what could be written about Moody's, and it's not very well written, especially the sections discussing criticisms of Moody's. I'm not interested in deleting criticisms of Moody's, but I am interested in making sure it is discussed in fuller context and more accurately.

So my version is very much longer, and includes carefully researched and written new sections on the history of Moody's, including the formation of Moody's Corporation, the creation of Moody's Analytics and the role of Moody's Investors Service in capital markets, among other key topics. I have also written about Moody's controversies as well.

It's important to point out about this version: it covers Moody's Analytics, even though there does now exist a separate article. This is a bit complicated, because the history of the company is somewhat complicated, but I think there are two outcomes I would be equally happy with:

1. The existing Moody's Analytics article be merged with this one, and the totality of Moody's and its subsidiaries be discussed here.
2. The draft I have proposed be split into three articles: Moody's Corporation, Moody's Investors Service and Moody's Analytics. This would require a little more work, but not a great deal.

In addition, I think it's very possible reasonable editors might disagree with some details, but if you agree that this new version is better, I hope we can agree to move it over and then discuss further changes. Anyhow, I'll be asking for other editors' help and posting a note to COI/N, and I hope we can find consensus to improve this article soon. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think separate articles would be better.

The draft looks good. However, there may be a few places where wording could be tweaked or layout improved further - for instance "The company has its origins in the early 20th century" is redundant, considering what the next sentence of the lede says. Would you mind if I made some minor changes to your draft?

If in doubt, I'd recommend changing the article in sections rather than in one "big bang", because other readers will be very wary of radical changes to a controversial article with neutrality issues, and it's harder to get reassurance through a quick look at a diff. bobrayner (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response. I am OK with you making direct changes to the draft. Please go ahead, and if I have any questions I will respond accordingly. I'm also fine with going section by section. Is there are particular place you would like to begin?

In addition, I am fine with splitting this into multiple articles, as each article certainly would be more manageable for it. However it would complicate matters in the short run, and would require splitting the draft into multiple subpages, not to mention adjustments to header and footer content. I would be able to do so by tomorrow, but if you want to give it a shot, please feel free. Thanks again, I am very much looking forward to this process. Mysidae (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

OK. Will start work when I have free time. Don't feel that I'm rushing you; no doubt we both have a lot of other tasks on our to-do lists... bobrayner (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm not in a rush either, but I may start splitting the draft soon, unless you get there first. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Splitting it up will get really complicated for the casual users. What is the advantage? Daisyfi (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Daisyfi. Good question. While I'm OK with it going either way, there is a great deal of content under discussion, so putting it all in one page could result in quite a lengthy article. Following the WP:SIZERULE guideline, the current draft falls under "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)". And, if split, it would be reasonable to include hatnotes on each article disambiguating the different Moody's-related pages. What do you think? Mysidae (talk) 03:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Many articles have relevant sections that are excepts or summaries of other full articles (France is an example - most of its sections are full separate articles). Why don't we do this? The casual user would then be able to get a full picture from the main article while someone who wants details into the rating criteria of subnational entities or the specifics of a service offered by Moody's Analytics can see that too. I think there's a lot more detail that could be added to the Analytics and Investment Services page that are impractical to add to the full article. Rpinergizer (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If I follow your point, it's that the Moody's Corporation article (which would be this one, because Moody's Corporation redirects to this page) should include sections devoted to Moody's Investors Service and Moody's Analytics, with hatnotes linking to the full articles? If so, then I agree. Perhaps I wasn't as clear before, in merely saying that we would move the MIS and MA content out of this article. You are right, though, there should still be material about those subsidiaries in the article about the parent company—just not as much as exists now. Please let me know if I understand your point correctly. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Bobrayner review

For the purposes of keeping things easy for others to follow, I've created this sub-head, and will copy Bobrayner's questions on the draft's Talk page here. He writes:

• The "1970s to present" section has this: "Although Moody's had fewer than 1,500 employees in its division, it represented approximately 51% of Dun & Bradstreet profits...". That appears to be comparing apples to oranges. Would it be possible to include a total headcount for D&B at that time?
• The credit ratings table looks more organised than the original but is now quite big/obtrusive. Is there any practical way to shrink or split or condense it?
• I don't see any broader problems of scope or neutrality, other than maybe the chance of splitting MIS into a separate article, so recent changes have just been pedantic detail!

In reverse order: Thanks, I'm very glad all the hard work has produced a broadly acceptable draft. Second, it is true that the table now is quite obtrusive. Now that you mention it, that makes for another reason to split the draft article into three. As to the question about whether the comparison is apples to oranges, it does make a point about how D&B was holding back Moody's, from an investor value perspective. And there's no synthesis here; the comparison is nearly verbatim (but I trust sufficiently rephrased!) from this New York Times article. Here's the relevant passage:

Making Moody's a separate company is a risky move for the surviving entity, the Dun & Bradstreet Operating Company. That company, the home of Dun & Bradstreet's core credit-information business, has been floundering. Although nearly 90 percent of employees work for the operating business, it generates less than half of Dun & Bradstreet profit.

Moody's stands in stark contrast. With fewer than 1,500 employees, the credit-rating agency accounted for roughly 51 percent of Dun & Bradstreet's operating profit in the fiscal year that ended in September and about 28 percent of its $2 billion in revenue.

So, I'd like to see it remain.

Then, as to specific changes in made, I have no objections except to the removal of the NYSE ticker from the lead. I agree it making the first line scan better, but it seems this is standard on articles about publicly traded companies, including FA BAE Systems and GAs Chuck E. Cheese's and UBS, not to mention other well-developed articles like Apple Inc. and Google. (Seems like there must be a guideline but, at present, I can't locate it.) For that reason I am inclined to replace it, however it's definitely still confusing with the additional parenthetical. I will think about how to make these work, and propose a solution soon.

Otherwise, I think the next step is to create three alternative versions that show what the three would look like split. And if those worked as expected, open a separate discussion on the Moody's Analytics discussion page (if only to point back here), update the current Moody's article and create Moody's Investors Service. Of course, if other editors have strongly differing views on these matters I'm open to further discussion. Thanks, Mysidae (talk) 21:40, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Three proposed Moody's drafts

Following the discussions above, I have divided my very lengthy Moody's draft into three separate proposed articles detailing the three key entities that make up Moody's overall. These are now available for review in my user space:

• Moody's Corporation (MCO) – the holding company
• Moody's Investors Service (MIS) – the ratings agency
• Moody's Analytics (MA) – the non-rating businesses

And though previously I had suggested including hatnotes for the different Moody's-related pages at the top of each, instead I've included wikilinks in the introductions and at appropriate places within each article so that readers may find their way from one to the other where they are mentioned. I think this is more than sufficient, and no one should be confused.

Relatedly, I'd suggest that the term "Moody's" redirect to the MIS page, as this is by far the best known Moody's entity, and it is reasonable to expect this is what most Internet users are going to be looking for when they search for "Moody's".

And with respect to Rpinergizer, I believe that this draft covers the general topics of his recent addition, i.e. sections in the current article under "Types of Ratings & Rating Criteria". Although sourced to Moody's, the figures included are subject to change and not critical for understanding the topic. In fact I think it's too much detail without a clear explanation, and in my opinion runs into Wikipedia's admonition that it is neither a directory nor a catalog.

I invite anyone watching this page to comment on the three articles, and to boldly make them so, if one agrees they are ready. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Progress so far

I've had a quick (not exhaustive) read through the drafts, and they're looking good. Happy for them to go live. I still have concerns about the big bold table, but that's cosmetic - not enough to bring work to a halt. I'm sure that once it's in article-space, it'll evolve a little. bobrayner (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I've taken a couple live, but am a bit sleep-deprived at the moment so there's too much risk of making some silly mistake with tasks like this (tried moving one draft over a redirect with a single revision in its edit history, which I thought enwiki should allow, but it didn't let me) - will tidy up loose ends at the weekend. bobrayner (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I have also read through at least the investors service draft and I think it is looking good. John Shandy` • talk 23:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I very much appreciate the effort and review. The articles Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Service still need logos, with fair use rationales added, and I can take care of these soon. If there's anything I can do to help expedite the update of the Moody's Corporation page (this one) please let me know. I'd also like to suggest that this article be renamed Moody's Corporation and the page "Moody's" redirect to Moody's Investors Service, because that is surely what readers will be looking for when they run a search on the term. However, I am open to discussing further. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

More content taken live, logos added, redirects done. Anything else I missed? bobrayner (talk) 06:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

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