Markets are tanking today! Numbers were not that bad, Greece is at the same place it was! Suddenly investors care. Aside from that Bloomberg released an analysis of the world's strongest banks -- In the top 15, 5 were Canadian, three from Singapore and two from Switzerland. None of the Canadian banks are rated AAA by Moody's (or S&P) in fact, National Bank of Canada (#3 in the world) is actually rated the weakest (in rating terms).
I point this out to make this story funnier, it turns out that Cyprus only two commercial banks have an exposure to Greece of about $30 billion, or about 170% of Cyprus' GDP. Today, everyone is talking write-downs on Greek debt (Duh!) with hair cuts of 40% to 75%. In this instance, a poor country that has not too much sovereign debt could find itself as the world's most bankrupt country in about 5 minutes.
I wonder what rating Moody's and S&P assigned to these two banks???
Inquiring minds want to know -- not really!