Rapid Ratings™ is an entirely quantitative global rating agency offering ratings and research on credit risk and equity risk for public and private companies and banks in all major markets. Our proprietary models and software have an unparalleled track record in anticipating the success, distress, demise and turnaround of companies in advance of their share price movements, Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s ratings changes and other market indicators.

Rapid Ratings provides early insights into opportunities and risks for individual companies or groups companies (by sector, index or country)

Our services offer significant scalability, scope and flexibility for helping money managers, hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, broker dealers, banks, insurance companies, corporations and large creditors respond to current and complex investment requirements and develop risk mitigation strategies in the following areas:

High yield and distressed, Long/short equity, Hedging, Portfolio optimization, Capital structure arbitrage, Convertible arbitrage, Merger arbitrage, Counterparty risk, Financial restatement risk, among others.

Unlike other quantitative models, Rapid Ratings incorporates no market pricing (such as share price) into its calculations, making our financial health assessments of companies completely independent of subjective factors, highly predictive, completely consistent from company to company and across industries and able to rate both public and private companies uniformly.

Our Services

• A daily Reasons to Trade News Service (RTNS ©), combining equity and debt risk opinions in response to daily material event releases by the Russell 3000 companies US and the FTSE 350 UK listed companies. Easily extended to cover other listed companies based on customer preferences.
• Portfolio Index Screening (S&P 500, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, FTSE 350, TSX 220, TSE, 225, ASX 300 among others) for equity and debt markets (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc). Can be easily customized to include client-specified portfolios.
• Impact Data File Service: Providing comprehensive ratings data to help clients model investment decisions and to test for alpha
• Independent second opinions of companies and securities for listed equity and debt markets and non-listed or OTC markets. This service was originally developed to assist Banks meet Basel II requirements by scanning large blocks of listed or unlisted companies quickly and accurately.
• Listed companies and countries covered

Data Products

• Impact Data File (IDF)
Contents: Detailed historical and current data covering the short term, medium and long term corporate credit ratings as well as the scores for the sub-components of the short-term rating (leverage, debt service management, liquidity, sales performance, upstream profitability, downstream profitability and cost structure).

Coverage: All companies in the Russell 3000 and other selected universes in developed markets around the globe (weekly, monthly or quarterly). Now incorporating our Rolling Quarterly Rating (RQR©) Service for US companies.


• Matrix Reports
Contents: A more economically priced and scaled-down versions of our Institutional Impact Data File tailored for customers wanting a subset of our total coverage universe. It contains a small selection of our data items for firms that populate somewhat narrower indexes in the US and developed international markets.

Coverage: S&P 500, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, FTSE 350, Euro 500, TSX 220, Nikkei 225, ASX 300 etc: Portfolio screening and risk return analysis combined with a review of industry-specific risk (monthly). Now incorporating our Rolling Quarterly Rating (RQR©) Service for US companies.

Research Products

• Corporate Rating Report (CRR)
Contents: Our rating reports on individual companies: incorporating (1) current ratings and ratings forecasts; (2) thorough screening of financial health and creditworthiness; (3) detailed examination of financial strengths and weaknesses; and (4) DuPont analysis (daily). Now incorporating our Rolling Quarterly Rating (RQR©) Service for US companies.

Coverage: All listed and unlisted companies in each country (where audited financial data are available).


• Reasons to Trade (RTT) Report
Contents: Our equity focused report measuring the over-valuation or undervaluation of a company’s share price based on comparing trends in the Rapid Ratings credit rating relative to the share price (daily).

Coverage: Listed companies in the following countries – US (3281), Europe (466), Singapore (433), Australia (370), UK (345), Japan (331), Canada (202), and New Zealand (84). This is based on current demand. As long as we have the share price and corporate financials for three years, we can run a report for any company.


• Daily Reasons to Trade News Service (RTNS ©)
Contents: News Stories are generated based on scanned news coming from Bloomberg corporate actions and WSJ earnings reports etc., and packaged with our credit rating and equity recommendation information (daily). Now incorporating our Rolling Quarterly Rating (RQR©) Service for US companies.

Coverage: The Russell 3000 and the FTSE 350


• Global Top Buys (GTB) Report
Contents: The top 25 strong buys are selected monthly or quarterly.

Coverage: The Russell 3000, the TSX 225 and the FTSE 350.


• US Troubled & Distressed Company Report
Contents: This report identifies both new and persistently troubled and distressed US companies (monthly). Now incorporating our Rolling Quarterly Rating (RQR©) Service for US companies.

Coverage: Drawn from the Russell 3000 (monthly).

• May 8, 2008: Dr. Caragata's paper entitled 'Blind Spots and Path Dependence in the Ratings Market' was released for review. The paper examines the regulatory and behavioral impediments (the global regulatory spider web, NRSRO regulations, and the preference for flatlining/sticky ratings vs. accurate/timely ratings) to competition and efficiency in rating markets and makes recommendations for eliminating these problems. These obstacles prevent the entry of new technology which can provide an early warning of financial crises and corporate distress. The traditional rating agencies provide out-of-date information compared to CDS spreads, share prices, structural models and the Rapid Ratings system.
• May 2, 2008: Rapid Ratings (RR) released a paper on Comparative Performance of Predictors of Distress which provides evidence that S&P/Moody's ratings lag share prices and RR's financial health ratings (FHR). New work on the US homebuilding industry and the subprime crisis reveals that RR's FHR index led both the CDS spread and share price indices by 11 months (and rating downgrades from S&P and Moody's by more in all cases) in terms of providing a consistent indication of decline. This was 7.5 - 8.0 months ahead its performance using standard led/lag analysis, demonstrating the value of this new index.
• April 20, 2008: Tom Sculley was appointed as Senior Sales Executive. He has over 25 years experience as a Fixed Income Trader, Portfolio Manager and Registered Representative for both buy-side and sell-side firms such as Unicredit, HVB, Deutsche Bank, Kidder Peabody and Merrill Lynch.
• April 3, 2008: Rapid Ratings released its Report on the US Homebuilding Industry. The study revealed that Rapid Ratings' Financial Health Ratings (FHRs) were dynamic early warning signals identifying the deterioration in the US homebuilding sector. RR first identified a material downgrade to a sector component company in March of 2006 with a downgrade of Levitt Corp 20 months prior to Levitt's filing Chapter 11. Overall, the average lead of the FHR over CDS spreads was 3.1 months (correlation coefficient, -0.92), while the average lead over the share price was 2.5 months (correlation coefficient, 0.78). Companies with better ratings more easily weathered the storm. In addition, Rapid Ratings' downgrades led Moody's and S&P downgrades in every case by even more time.
• March 10, 2008: Short Analysis Tool Using Quarterly Data. RR developed an investment screening tool using its Rolling Quarterly Rating Service (RQRS) for determining candidates for shorting in a theoretical portfolio.  Candidates for shorting experienced a rating change of negative 30 points over a 12 month period (measured monthly given balance date variations across companies).  The average annual negative return on this portfolio was 21%.  The return of $100 invested as shorts would have grown to $675 before transaction costs. 
• Feb 26, 2008: John VanDeventer Moon was appointed Vice President, Business Development with Rapid Ratings. He has over 20 years experience as a Portfolio Manager and Fixed Income Trader for both buy-side and sell-side firms such as Alliance Capital, Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Bayerische Hypo-Und Vereinsbank.
• December 17, 2007: RR completed Phase #1 of its extensive project on reviewing default activity in the US market covering the period 1980-2007. The project is entitled The Estimation of Default Probabilities Using Rapid Ratings Financial Health Ratings (FHRs). Phase #1 covers the period 1990-2007. The model is a maximum likelihood estimation of the probability of default and incorporates a temporal adjustment factor for each year. RR does not directly predict defaults of individual firms. Instead, its unique approach first provides a measure of the financial health of individual firms (the FHR rating and score) based on a massive data base, and then separately provides information to relate the FHR score to the probability that the firm will default. This is a key factor in explaining RR's accuracy. Both the ratings model and the default models have a very strong empirical foundation. Phase #2 is extending the time period to 1980 and developing the foundation for estimations of the joint probability of default.
• July 1, 2007: HedgeMetrics, a New York city-based analytics firm, completed a comprehensive performance review of Rapid Ratings' credit risk models' and its equity risk models' forecasting capabilities and accuracy, providing independent confirmation of the significant future value added by Rapid Ratings' corporate credit ratings and its buy and sell calls.
• June 15, 2007: Rapid Ratings launches its new Impact Data File (IDF) Service for institutional investors covering the US market. The IDF Service incorporates the ratings for companies which have been dropped, for whatever reason, from and retained in the Russell 3000 over the last 10 years.
• May 1, 2007: Rapid Ratings launched its Rolling Quarterlies Rating Service (RQRS©) in the US market. This is the world's first quarterly corporate credit rating service. It provides a quick response to earnings releases and thus provides a Rapid response for both debt and equity markets. The Rolling Quarterly Ratings Service is now incorporated in the following products and services from Rapid Ratings: The Reasons to Trade News Services (RTNS©), (which appears daily on Thomson, Reuters, Track Data, and Bloomberg), the Reasons to Trade Report for equity markets (BNY Convergex, Reuters, and Thomson), the Corporate Rating Report for debt and credit markets, the Impact Data File Service for institutional investors, the US Troubled and Distressed Company Report for high yield and distressed debt investors, and the US Coverage Matrix Report (top 3000 by market cap) for institutional investors, broker-dealers and investment banks.
• April 9, 2007: Rapid Ratings opened its new office in Bangalore, India. The operation in India will be headed by Ben Ayyakad, previously General Manager of Production with Rapid Ratings and now Vice President. He was born in Trichur, Kerala, India.
• February 1, 2007: Rapid Ratings International Inc, a newly formed acquisition vehicle, purchased substantially all of the assets of the Rapid Ratings business (including the name Rapid Ratings) from Collection House Ltd of Brisbane Australia and established the new headquarters for Rapid Ratings' business in New York City. Rapid Ratings International Inc is a Delaware-registered company. Because the takeover was a purchase of assets rather than a share purchase, Rapid Ratings was required to cede its ASIC financial services license in Australia.
• February 1, 2007: Mr. James H. Gellert was appointed as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Patrick Caragata, Founder, was appointed as Executive Vice-Chairman. Mr. Douglas Cameron was appointed as Chief Operating Officer. For brief bio details, see the About Us page on this website.

Our Clients

• Broker/Dealers
• Commercial Banks
• Hedge Funds
• Investment Banks
• Institutional Investors
• Insurance Companies
• Multinational Enterprises
• Private Equity Funds
• Pension Funds / Superannuation Funds
• Stock Exchanges