Survey criticizes credit ratings.

• Position: Business Briefs - Financial professionals often feel that credit ratings are inaccurate and slow to react to changes in company finances - Brief Article

A recent survey by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) finds many financial professionals ready to vote thumbs down on credit ratings, which they view as often inaccurate and slow to reflect changes in company finances. As a result, AFP has urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to refocus its oversight of rating agencies.

According to the survey, 29 percent of practitioners who work for companies with rated debt believe that their company's ratings are inaccurate--and only 40 percent of these managers believe that changes in their company's ratings are timely.

More than one-quarter of respondents whose companies have experienced a downgrade, report that it took more than six months for their rating to be downgraded to reflect an adverse financial change. Ratings upgrades taken even longer, with 57 percent of respondents from companies that experienced an upgrade reporting that the change took place more than six months after a positive change in their company's financial position.

In other findings:

* Treasury and finance corporate practitioners tend to believe that their...