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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mirant Corporation (MIR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick J. Saunders who wrote (56)	1/29/2002 10:15:19 PM
From: Perry Ganz	Respond to of 903

Pat I wish I could tell you but I do not know precisely how moody's or S & P arrive at a rating. I suspect that after the Enron bankruptcy that when they hear the word derivative they are going to cover their butts. It has always amazed me how little people understand about hedging with derivatives, it seems as if they hear the word and automatically think its high risk. Just my opinion Perry

To: Patrick J. Saunders who wrote (56)	1/29/2002 10:55:07 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 903

Patrick, MIR was only downgraded to "junk" by Moody's. S&P still has them at BBB-/Stable/A-3 (long-term, ratings outlook & short-term). standardandpoors.com Why Moody's downgraded, I can only guess. Fear, most likely, after getting caught off guard with Enron. Fear of things they don't understand. I base that on the comments they made at the time, which demonstrated a rather limited understanding of Mirant's business relative to Enron's. Mirant executives responded publicly, noting how each of Moody's expressed concerns was off-base (check the news in the week before Christmas, I think). I can understand your concern as you are a shareholder watching your investment's value decline sharply, but I suggest that you take the time to understand both the issues being so widely ... uh ... discussed (I was going to say hyped) and how these concerns over accounting, derivatives risks, or whatever else people are trying to paint MIR with are not applicable. We are now looking at a well run, growing (albeit slightly more slowly thanks to Moody's and the market's overreaction), profitable and liquid business with a trailing PE of just over five (under 5 for much of today). One does not get many chances like this as an investor, so if you are liquid (and can tolerate a little more volatility near-term), I'd say think about buying more. Regards, Bob