Meredith Whitney | Meredith Whitney to Start Credit-Rating Agency

Meredith Whitney - Whitney left her position at Oppenheimer early last year to open her own research company, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group. Already, she has been creating ratings for the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market. She plans to rate global structured products, global corporate bonds and U.S. municipal bonds.

Credit rating agencies are blamed for contributing to the financial crisis by giving high ratings to risky structured debt products backed by U.S. mortgages.

Meredith Whitney is on 60 Minutes tonight talking about the horrible state of muni finances. She's predicting over 50 defaults in the coming year.
It's well-travelled territory for readers, and it's a kick that Whitney has been on for some time.

But this is also likely new ground for a lot of viewers, and will probably wake them up to the risks in their muni portfolio (some on Twitter are already suggesting that this has got them thinking).

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