Assignment of Global Ratings to Tax-Exempt Municipal Obligations

SIFMA’s Municipal Division provides comments to Moody’s Investors Service on Moody’s request for comment, Assignment of Global Ratings to Tax-Exempt Municipal Obligations.  SIFMA supports this proposal as a first step in creating a fully comparable global rating scale.  SIFMA encourages Moody’s to quickly add Global Scale Ratings (GSR) to all municipal securities debt that it rates to provide certainty to those who rely on ratings to assess portfolio risk, but maintain the fine gradations that continued municipal scale ratings provide.