POOF!!! GONE...........

(Via Atrios --> Calculated Risk)

Fitch Downgrades $37.2 Billion in CDOs
By Anusha Shrivastava
WALL STREET JOURNAL
11/13/2007

Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit ratings of $37.2 billion of global collateralized debt obligations, with more than $14 billion of transactions falling from the highest-rated triple-A perch to speculative-grade, or junk, status.

Fitch, a unit of Fimalac SA of Paris, warned two weeks ago that such downgrades were in the cards amid both the rapid deterioration of collateral used to back those financial structures and changes in its own methodology for evaluating default risk.

Commenter Gray at Calculated Risk makes a great point:

Uh, how can a rating agency do this and still keep some credibility? Imho this is a shocking confession of total failure to even remotely do the job the customers expected them to do. What would you think of an art expert who has to admit that most of the paintings he enthusiastically praised in the last years have turned out to be fakes? He's dead, right? Out of the job for the rest of his life? Should be happy if he can get a job as a house painter? Now, why should a rating agency be treated differently???