Looks like you better pray gold does move higher - If only to support your banking:
Annanova
US bank ratings little hurt, Canada's hit harder by co defaults - Moody's
US bank ratings are likely to suffer only limited damage from the current high level of corporate defaults, but Canadian banks are expected to be hit harder, Moody's Investors Service said in a report on the sector.
US banks have been able to side-step significant exposure to damaged credits in the troubled corporate sectors by carefully avoiding mistakes that had burned them in the past - particularly by eschewing big concentration risks and excessive lending to single major corporate borrowers, said Moody's Managing Director Gregory Bauer.
"The US banks - unlike their smaller Canadian rivals - have generally been very prudent about their extent of involvement with the loan syndication business, where asset quality is inferior to that of other corporate bank loans," Bauer said.
Of the seven rated Canadian banks, however, exposure has already shaken their credit standing. Four have negative outlooks from Moody's based on risks that they possess in their corporate North American loan portfolios.
Canadian banks are very active in the shared national credit (SNC) market as both underwriters and lenders, Moody's said, adding one outcome of this participation is that they did not dodge some concentration risks.
"Because the telecommunication and energy industries accessed the SNC market for a sizable portion of their financing, and because several bank managements developed expertise in those areas, the Canadian banks' telecommunication exposure became greater than that of their US peers," said Bauer.
© AFX News
Story filed: 16:29 Wednesday 7th August 2002
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