But if it's too dire, he risks sending GM's BBB- credit rating into the junk pile.
The bonds, rated Baa2 by Moody's and BBB-plus by Fitch, have a coupon of 7.8%.
For the past year, Shilling has followed his own advice and made a 600% return on BBB-rated CDOs.
The ratings service cited the thrift's exposure to the mortgage securities market, downgrading it to BB-minus from BBB-minus.
The rating agency has a BBB-minus rating with a negative outlook on India.
But if you were BBB-rated, you had some trouble, and if you were lower than BBB-rated, it was nearly impossible.
The sourpuss bond rating agencies weren't so sure and said they're reviewing Valero's BBB-credit rating and might downgrade it to junk status.
Fitch Ratings also has the sovereign on BBB-minus with a negative outlook.
Even Azerbaijan, with its investment grade status affirmed at BBB- by Fitch in May, was raised from a stable outlook to positive.
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The a- to bbb-- rated bonds, Wilkus says, are yielding 16% to 19% and have an astonishingly low default rate (0.5% of the loans).
In this case, I looked at the MMD A Electric Power as a benchmark, since there is no MMD for BBB-rated bonds in the electric power sector.
The sovereign now has the lowest investment-grade rating of BBB-.
Late Wednesday afternoon in Europe, Fitch Ratings said it had cut Iceland's long-term sovereign currency issuer default ratings to "BBB-, " from "A, " putting them firmly in "junk" territory.
Debt has dropped to 3.5 times operating income from 7.2 times back in 1996, enough to support the firm's Bbb junk-bond rating.
High-yield bonds, BBB with 10-year duration, sold to yield 9 percent.
This is better than 10-year Treasuries or even BBB debentures.
Corporate bonds rated BBB are yielding 8%, while their below-investment-grade BB brethren yield 9%.
Recently newly issued BBB rated bonds were yielding 3.73% while B-rated bonds were yielding 6.66%, according to Highyieldbond.com.
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