what does the aaa credit rating mean 
the aaa credit rating is only given to the most creditworthy debt issuers and allows investors to gauge the amount of risk in their fixed income portfolio conservative investors will typically sacrifice return or yield to own the highest credit rating issues available the bottom linecredit ratings are assigned to debt issues and bonds by the three major debt rating agencies s p moody s and fitch their credit ratings have a strong influence on the cost of borrowing for the issuer the better the credit rating the lower the cost to borrow aaa aaa ratings are the highest ratings issued by the credit rating agencies and likely result in the lowest borrowing costs or yields investors seeking a better return should look down the credit ratings scale for bond issuers with lower ratings and higher yields 