S&P is a ratings agency (owned by a publishing company) that has opinions on the creditworthiness of debt and sometimes other instruments. Opinions that it shares, of course.
S&P also manages an index fund series called the S&P 500, which tracks the top 500 U.S. companies by market value across nine industries.
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Finance: What are the Differences in S&P...27 Views
finance a la shmoop what are the differences in S&P's, and Moody's
ratings? capital letters. really that's about it the assessment of the rating
itself is about the same. the people work at both companies all came from about [grinning men walk in front of a school]
the same schools the same semi diversified backgrounds and well they
all eat the same white bread. note the nomenclature differences here though.
Moody's does in fact look kind of moody with a big fat capital letter in the
beginning followed by small letters and slightly different notations. the S&P is
all in caps all shouting all the time. the metrics behind say a quote highly [chart shown]
speculative bond unquote down here are about the same for both companies but
the slight differences are worth noting so that when you see a rating well you
know just by the way in which it's written who wrote it.
now as for actually understanding bond ratings well that's a different story. to [document shown]
most people they might as well be hieroglyphics. [confused woman reads paper]
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What is the S&P 500? It's Standard & Poor's 500 generally largest companies, with a U.S. domestic bias. The S&P 500 is usually what investors think...