2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Moody's?

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Based on the aggregated intelligence of 135,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, credit rating agency Moody's (NYSE: MCO) has received a distressing two-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Moody's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Moody's facts

Headquarters (founded)	New York, N.Y. (1900)
Market Cap	$6.86 billion
Industry	Specialized finance
TTM Revenue	$1.73 billion
Management	CEO Raymond McDaniel, Jr. (since 2005) CFO Linda Huber (since 2005)
Net Income Growth (average, last five years and TTM)	2.6% and (34.0%)
3-Month Return	81%
Competitors	Standard & Poor's Fitch Ratings
CAPS members bearish on MCO also bearish on	Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) Palm (Nasdaq: PALM)
CAPS members bullish on MCO also bullish on	General Electric (NYSE: GE) Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)

Sources: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Motley Fool CAPS. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Over on CAPS, 98 of the 420 All-Star members who have rated Moody's -- some 23% -- believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bears include Ayax2006 and TMFDeej, both of whom are ranked in the top 2% of our community.

Two weeks ago, Ayax2006 refused to give Moody's any credit: "The credit rating system is broken, the few companies that play this game have perverse incentives to inflate credit ratings, as we all know now.... Sooner or later this has to change."

In a brilliant rant from one day earlier, TMFDeej echoes that outrage. Below is an excerpt, but be sure to check out the full pitch here:

It absolutely blows my mind that the ratings agency oligopoly which wreaked havoc by creating $3.2 trillion dollars in subprime mortgage securities, (75% of which they assigned AAA ratings) and by failing to see problems at companies like Lehman Brothers..., Bear Stearns (which was rated A / A2 / A respectively two days before it was forced into a takeover by JPMorgan Chase), and AIG (NYSE: AIG) ... is now making money by helping the government clean up the mess that it created. …

The three big boys in this industry, Moody's, S&P, & Fitch control 98% of the market for debt ratings! Their government-mandated monopoly enables them to do whatever they want in terms of being wrong on their ratings and charging whatever they want to without any repercussions. Moody's average pre-tax profit margin over the past several years has been over 50-freaking percent.

What do you think about Moody's, or any other stock for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. More than 135,000 investors are waiting to hear what you have to say. CAPS is 100% free, so simply click here to get started.