From the Wall Street Journal:
Standard & Poor’s lowered ratings on 498 bonds backed by subprime home loans, comprising the vast majority of the 612 bonds that it earlier this week said it was reviewing for downgrades.
The ratings company also said the 612 bonds were originally worth $7.35 billion, not the $12 billion it previously said. Of the bonds that weren’t downgraded, 26 are still being reviewed, while ratings on 74 aren’t being changed.
Separately, Fitch Ratings said yesterday that it may take negative ratings actions on up to $7.1 billion of mortgage bonds during the next several weeks as it pores over 170 U.S. subprime transactions.
Let me get this straight. S&P can’t even add up the face amount of bonds it announced it had under review correctly, and we trust them to rate these things?
