Publicly traded corporations that fail to file audited financial statements as prescribed by the SEC risk their stock tanking and being delisted from the exchange. Grave consequences to be sure. Yet there is no consequence to those municipal bond issuers for the same failure to file. Until now.
Moody’s rating agency has finally had enough of dealing with municipal bad citizens. We count 861 CUSIPs on which they have withdrawn their ratings. Many issuers have multiple CUSIPs owned by investors just like you. In the Muniverse, 861 CUSIPs is not huge. But it’s a beginning. Sure, the issuer may have decided to dump Moody’s, causing the rating agency to withdraw their rating. Still, it’s an impressive number and something to my knowledge that hasn’t been done on this scale before.
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