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Gold/Mining/Energy : CPN: Calpine Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aerosappy who wrote (253)	1/31/2002 2:00:57 PM
From: Softechie	Respond to of 555

The investment grade is very important to these trading operations with assets backing. The TA will get resolved from calmed down market fears.

To: aerosappy who wrote (253)	1/31/2002 4:05:44 PM
From: Bob Rudd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 555

<<Like MIR, CPN is focused on restoring its investment grade debt rating.>>I believe CPN was not rated investment grade prior to this mess [S&P briefly put them there, but then pulled back]...and is less perilous from non-investment grade than MIR which has a higher mix of trading in it's business model. My impression is that CPN's trading is mostly driven by hedging and optomizing it's portfolio...very little speculative position trading. MIR is sorta mixed in this regard...DYN is more in the trading area...more like Enron in that regard. Anyway, the more dependent an operation is on trading, the more critical the credit rating becomes because counterparties look to it for assurance that the other side of the trade can fulfill it's obligations. This is especially true of asset-lite operations - like Enron, but unlike assset intensive Calpine. Since CPN did just fine with non-investment grade rating, they shouldn't be considered highly at risk now that they don't have IG rating just because S&P briefly put them there.