Critics Say Bond Raters Sometimes See No Evil
By Charles Gasparino and Craig KarminStaff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Nov. 28, 1997 1:27 am ET
The big bond-rating houses, whose mission it is to measure the risks of financial calamity, are on the hot seat as investors appraise their performance in the Asian crisis.
Whenever disaster strikes, as it did, for example, in Orange County, Calif., in 1994, the rating agencies' customers -- a mix of individual investors and big institutions such as mutual funds and pension funds -- want to know whether it could have been foreseen.