One of the more odd requirements of new European regulation on credit rating agencies, is the need for a symbol to accompany structured finance ratings.
On Tuesday, we have what (we think) is the first selection from one of the big three agencies.
From Standard & Poor’s:
LONDON, February 16, 2010–As market participants will be aware, under the European Regulation on Credit Rating Agencies (Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009) in force from December 2009 (the “Regulation”), credit rating agencies regulated within the European Union will be required to add a symbol to ratings on structured finance instruments.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services will apply for registration under the Regulation. It is our intention that, on or before Sept. 7, 2010, we will give all ratings on structured finance instruments such an additional symbol. Having carefully considered various options, we believe that operationally it is most practical to have a global application of this rule and accordingly determined that our attribution of a symbol to structured finance instruments will be global.
The symbol that we will use is “(SF)”. We will add this symbol as a subscript to the existing ratings symbology (see “Standard & Poor’s Ratings Definitions,” published Feb. 15, 2010). No other changes are intended to the rating categories applied to structured finance instruments.
SF?
Ok, firstly that’s not really a symbol, though it is rather unimaginatively succinct.
Secondly — boring!
FT Alphaville has some much better symbolic suggestions:
Choose your favourite, or link to your own, in the comments section below.
Related links:
Rating cows – FT Alphaville
Cave, vomitus sum – FT Alphaville
CPDOs, a structured finance post-mortem – FT Alphaville
Regulation of credit rating agencies in Europe – Butterworths