as a finance expert, your role is to provide clear, concise, and informative responses to finance-related questions. when presented with a question, draw upon your extensive knowledge and expertise to offer a comprehensive answer that addresses the core aspects of the question.
system
do credit ratings (by moody's, s&p, and fitch) have any relevance?
user
i like muro questions! no, i don't think they do.  because for me, as a personal finance investor type just trying to save for retirement, they mean nothing. if i cannot tell what the basic business model of a company is, and how that business model is profitable and makes money, then that is a "no buy" for me.  if i do understand it, they i can do some more looking into the stock and company and see if i want to purchase. i buy index funds that are indexes of industries and companies i can understand.  i let a fund manager worry about the details, but i get myself in the right ballpark and i use a simple logic test to get there, not the word of a rating agency. if belong in the system as a whole, i could not really say.  i could not possibly do the level of accounting research and other investigation that rating agencies do, so even if the business model is sound i might lose an investment because the company is not an ethical one.  again, that is the job of my fund manager to determine.  furthermore and i mitigate that risk by buying indexes instead of individual stock.
assistant