Fasb Disclosure rates (Moody's)

[Guest lisbetf]

I can't seem to get to the SOA site that has the month end Moody's Aa interest rates. Is there another site I can go to, or can anyone help me find out the rate for May?

[Guest Mike Melnick]

You can go directly to www.moodys.com, but you will need to register with them to get a username and password. The registration is free.

If you are willing to do that than follow these 4 steps:

1. Go to www.moodys.com

2. Click on the phrase "Credit Trends" (at bottom of the semi-circle in the main logo)

3. At this point you have to login. (The first time through you will have to register. Instruction for such are on page)

4. Find the second paragraph titled "Bond Yield and Key Indicators", and click on the word "more" at the bottom of that paragraph. (That will take you to "Moody's dailiy long term corporate bond yield averages" which includes the Aa rates.

[MGB]

Going to Moody's will only give you today's rate (depending on what time of day you go there, it might be yesterday's). In order to see a rate at any other point in time, you must pay an $8,000 annual subscription fee.

The SOA had made arrangements with Moody's to display the end-of-month historical rates on their website. Note this is not the monthly average, it is still only a daily rate, once a month. It would be a violation of copyright laws to display this elsewhere without a contract with Moody's to do this.

Having said that, the rates have been removed from the SOA website. Don't know if it is temporary or not.

Your topic title is "FASB Disclosure Rates." The Moody's Aa Index is typically not an appropriate proxy for the discount rate (that index has too much recognition of call and other features, only 18 bonds in the index -- half corporate, half utility, and they are constantly changed -- meaning you don't know what the index represents). The correct rates to use should be based on actual cashflows of the plan and matching spot rates for those cashflows. An example of the appropriate spot rates are at:

http://www.soa.org/sections/pendis.html

With an explanation of how they were derived at:

http://www.soa.org/library/sectionnews/pen...ion/PSN9406.pdf

[MGB]

The loss of the Moody's Aa rates on the SOA site was only a glitch. It is now working again. (But, I don't know what their timing is -- the end-of-May is not posted.)

[david rigby]

The SOA link is http://www.soa.org/library/stats/seb.htm

Click on "Moodys Content Agreement".