Moody’s Chief Says CDO Ratings ‘Deeply Disappointing’

Moody’s Corp. Chief Executive Officer Raymond McDaniel said his company’s ratings of collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage securities in the past several years have been “deeply disappointing.”

McDaniel said the collapse of the housing market and subsequent economic slump were of a magnitude “many of us would have once thought unimaginable,” according to written testimony submitted to the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission for a hearing today in New York on credit ratings. He said he is proud of Moody’s reputation and the firm’s record of 100 years of rating trillions of dollars in debt.