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In the Collaborative Bond and Money Market Data Model the Generic Ratings appears within the field Ratings.

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Overview

Generic Ratings© are widely relied upon by market participants for statistical analyses and market commentary covering macro- and micro-level flows across international bond and money markets. As a standardised, single-figure credit measure, they allow analysts, investors and issuers to compare and aggregate credit quality across issuers rated by multiple agencies on differing scales.

How Generic Ratings© are calculated

CMDportal’s Generic Ratings© are derived as the conservative average of an issuer’s credit ratings available to CMD. In practice, this means:

1. Each individual rating (from all agencies covering the issuer) is mapped onto a common notch scale.
2. The arithmetic average of these notches is calculated.
3. The result is rounded to the nearest whole rating category — and where the average falls exactly halfway between two notches, it is rounded down to the more conservative (lower) rating rather than up.

Where applicable, separate Generic Ratings© are calculated for senior debt, subordinated debt, and debt issuance programmes, reflecting the fact that these can carry different ratings from the same agency.

Rating scale mapping (S&P / Fitch to Moody’s)

To calculate a Generic Rating©, ratings from different agencies are first translated onto a common notch scale using the following equivalence:

S&P / Fitch	Moody's	Notch
AAA	Aaa	1
AA+	Aa1	2
AA	Aa2	3
AA−	Aa3	4
A+	A1	5
A	A2	6
A−	A3	7
BBB+	Baa1	8
BBB	Baa2	9
BBB−	Baa3	10
BB+	Ba1	11
BB	Ba2	12
BB−	Ba3	13
B+	B1	14
B	B2	15
B−	B3	16
CCC+	Caa1	17
CCC	Caa2	18
CCC−	Caa3	19
CC	Ca	20
C	C	21
D	—	22

Worked examples

Underlying ratings	Generic Rating©	Rationale
BBB+ and BBB−	BBB	Exact midpoint between the two notches
BBB+ and BBB	BBB	Midpoint (BBB+/BBB) rounds down to the more conservative rating
BBB+, BBB+ and BBB	BBB+	Average sits closer to BBB+ than to BBB
Baa1, BBB+ and BBB	BBB+	Baa1 is equivalent to BBB+; average again sits closer to BBB+
Baa1, BBB+, BBB and BBB−	BBB	Average now sits closer to BBB than to BBB+

Further information

For questions about how a Generic Rating© is calculated, please contact the analysts at CMDportal.

For information on the current size of the Rated and Unrated Bond Market, please use our data sheet tool.
For information on the composition of the Rated and Unrated Bond Market, please use our issuer search tool.
For information on active dealers in the Rated and Unrated Bond Market, please use our dealer search tool.