Fitch Ratings

Google. Facebook. Amazon. The big three. At least this week.

Well, for a much longer time, Fitch has been the 3rd leg on the, uh…stool. Moody’s supports this leg. Standard & Poor's supports this leg. And the big fat guy who sits right here? Yeah, that’s you.

You, the big fat-walleted bond investor who relies on the scores of ratings services, in part, like these to figure how much risk premium you should attach to the bonds you are buying...or rather, the interest rate rent you should be charging the issuers for the privilege of renting your money.

Distinctively for Fitch’s? It’s owned (mostly) by Hearst. Yes that Hearst. Rosebud…William Randolph. First big swingin’ media mogul. “If we lose a million dollars a year, we’ll have to shut our doors in oh a hundred years…” Fitch’s is a 100-year-old global firm with feet in London and New York.

And after allll that time, you’d think they could have come up with something a bit more creative than their bond ratings…which look eerily similar to those of Moody's and Standard and Poor's. Had Shmoop owned a bond ratings service...uh, we’d have had ratings more like this:

:)

:(

:-P