Hi

After seeing the problems with the subprime mortgage market and the Wall Street alchemy of turning lower rated bonds into AAA rated securities, with Moody's and S&P just now starting to downgrade them, after the prices have already dropped 50% or more, I thought you might be interested in something similar, but hopefully not as disastrous, in the insured municipal bond market.Issuers of lower rated municipal bonds (such as BBB) purchase insurance from insurers such as AMBAC or MBIA, the two largest municipal bond insurers, and their ratings magically become the same rating as AMBAC or MBIAinsurance divisions, namely AAA. This is already somewhat deceptive, but it gets worse. I read an article on Bloomberg a few weeks ago that said that the credit default swap market was trading default swaps on MBIA and AMBAC at prices that implied that they were trading at BB junk level prices , while their insurance divisions traded at Baa3 levels (only one level above junk). Both companies have exposure to insuring subprime mortgage CDOs , and both companies also insure a combined total of about 1.6 TRILLION in municipal debt. Could the subprime mess spill over into the municipal market?

Please help.

I did not find the right solution from the internet.

References: -

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4623

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Thanks!