Moody's Ratings
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Moody's Ratings is the credit ratings division of Moody's Corporation. It was known as Moody's Investors Service until March 2024, when the unit was rebranded as Moody's Ratings. Moody's Ratings provides international financial research on bonds issued by commercial and government entities. Along with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, Moody's is one of the Big Three credit rating agencies. The company ranks the creditworthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale which measures expected investor loss in the event of default. Moody's Ratings rates debt securities in several bond market segments. These include government, municipal and corporate bonds; managed investments such as money market funds and fixed-income funds; financial institutions including banks and non-bank finance companies; and asset classes in structured finance. In Moody's Ratings system, securities are assigned a rating from Aaa to C, with Aaa being the highest quality and C the lowest quality. Moody's was founded by John Moody in 1909, to produce manuals of statistics related to stocks and bonds and bond ratings. In 1975, the company was identified as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Following several decades of ownership by Dun & Bradstreet, Moody's Investors Service became a separate company in 2000. Moody's Corporation was established as a holding company. On March 6, 2024, Moody's Investors Service was renamed to Moody's Ratings.