Image by Â©iStock.com/nicoolay. Marijuanaâalso called weed, herb, pot, grass, bud, ganja, Mary Jane, and a vast number of other slang termsâis a greenish-gray mixture of the dried, shredded leaves and flowers of Cannabis sativa, the hemp plant.
Municipal Bond Ratings. What is a Bond Rating. A bond rating performs the isolated function of credit risk evaluation. A bond rating does not constitute a recommendation to invest in a bond and does not take into consideration the risk preference of the investor. While many factors go into the investment decision making process, the bond rating is often the single most important factor affecting the interest cost on bonds.
Rating agencies also grew in size and profitability as the number of issuers accessing the debt markets grew exponentially, both in the United States and abroad. By 2009 the worldwide bond market (total debt outstanding) reached an estimated $82.2 trillion, in 2009 dollars.