Shuli Ren, Columnist

Credit Ratings Firms Were Asleep at the China Switch

Moody's, S&P and Fitch were actually upgrading developers when the troubles began. Now, they are waking up and overreacting, only to worsen a selloff.

November 1, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC

By Shuli Ren

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.

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Don’t you hate that type: Always late to the game but, once there, they play so aggressively to make up for it that everyone else gets scared. That’s not good sportsmanship.

That describes what the big three international credit ratings firms are doing. Moody’s Corp., S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings Inc. are downgrading China’s real estate developers at the fastest clip in over a year.