Macy's, Meet Junk

Moody's is back to its wicked stop-the-stupid-rally ways by junking Macy's. Moody's cut the retailer's unsecured debt rating from Baa3 to Ba2.

"The downgrade reflects the sharp deterioration in Macy's credit metrics to levels that are more appropriate for a mid Ba rating" stated Maggie Taylor, Vice President & Senior Credit Officer. "The downgrade also reflects Moody's expectation that Macy's operating performance will continue to be pressured given the current challenging consumer spending environment." Given this, Moody's expects Macy's credit metrics will deteriorate further over the next twelve months to levels that will be weak even for the new Ba2 rating."

Brave investors everywhere disagree with Moody's assessment, and are lapping up every share of M stock they can get their greedy little hands on. Credit deterioration, pension underfunding, declining cash, dividend cuts, dropping earnings: those are for pussies - bring on the paaaaain. It is amazing what a 0.5% beat on otherwise record low ISM readings, together with a few extra cars sold by a soon to be bankrupt company can do to investor sentiment.