Word: mbia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first, the losses did not really unnerve muni investors because they stemmed from a special problem relating to muni bond insurers, such as MBIA, which ran into financial difficulty. For that reason, many analysts and investors saw that early selloff in munis as a buying opportunity. The insurers may be in trouble, the thinking went, but municipalities were still able to raise taxes, or tolls, if they ever got into a crunch...
...Monoline bond insurance companies, such as MBIA and Ambac Financial Group Inc., have been hit the hardest as they scramble to raise capital to cover possible defaults and to stave off a downgrade from the ratings agencies. It was this group's foray out of its traditional municipal bonds and into mortgage-backed securities that caused the turmoil. A rating downgrade of the monoline companies could be devastating for banks and others who bought insurance protection from them to cover their corporate bond exposure...