A rating is an opinion
with a date on it.
The grade printed on an offer document was true the day it was written. The grade that matters is the one it carries today, and across India's traded corporate debt that number moves most weeks.
The number that moves
A bond is rarely born in trouble. It travels there.
Ratings are reviewed and revised, so the grade on the offer document tells you what an analyst thought at issuance rather than what the credit looks like now.
We read this directly off our own surveillance spine and published the result: of the Indian corporate bonds sitting at a default grade today, half were rated AAA or AA when they were sold. Almost none of them were issued in trouble. They migrated, notch by notch, while the prospectus still said what it always said.
So the habit worth building is simple: watch the current grade, on a schedule, for everything you hold. Every bond page on Capera shows the live grade from each agency rating it, alongside the grade at issue, so the distance between the two is visible at a glance.
The last thirty days
23 upgrades, 10 downgrades, counted by issuer
Counted the way a credit desk counts them: one issuer, one agency, one notch move is one action, with the number of bonds it touched shown beside it. Counting rows instead would make a quiet month look several times busier than it was.
Recent downgrades
| Issuer | Rating move | Agency | Bonds | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BBB+BBB |  Acuité | 2 | 5 Sept | |
BBBBBB- |  ICRA | 2 | 4 Sept | |
BBBBBB- | ICRA | 2 | 4 Sept | |
BBB-BB+ |  CRISIL | 3 | 3 Sept | |
AA- |  India Ratings | 5 | 26 Aug |
Recent upgrades
| Issuer | Rating move | Agency | Bonds | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BBB-BBB | India Ratings | 1 | 9 Sept | |
AA+ |  CARE Ratings | 2 | 4 Sept | |
A+AA- | CRISIL | 2 | 3 Sept | |
AA-AA | CRISIL | 1 | 3 Sept | |
AAAA+ | India Ratings | 4 | 2 Sept |
That is a sample. The complete window, every action, sits on the live rating-actions tracker, which rebuilds daily.
Where the opinions part
Sometimes two agencies look at one company and see different things
Most multi-rated issuers carry grades that agree or sit a notch apart. A small number sit much further apart, and those gaps are worth knowing about before you price the credit yourself.
Across the rated universe we track 967 issuers carrying grades from 8 agencies. Around 445 of them are rated by more than one agency, and on 77 of those the agencies disagree on the same bond.
| Issuer | Higher view | Lower view | Apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam | A- Brickwork | C Infomerics | 14 notches |
| Indore Municipal Corporation | AA+ India Ratings | BB- Brickwork | 11 notches |
| Nlc India | AAA India Ratings | BB+ Brickwork | 10 notches |
| Gujarat State Investments | AA Acuite | BB Brickwork | 9 notches |
| Wadhwagroup Holdings | BBB+ Infomerics | B Brickwork | 7 notches |
| Chemm Finance | B+ India Ratings | C Brickwork | 7 notches |
Both grades are live and both are published. A wide gap is a prompt to read the issuer yourself rather than a verdict on either agency. Compare what each agency covers.
How to use a split
Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam carries A- from Brickwork and C from Infomerics, which is 14 notches apart on the same paper. Neither number is wrong; they are two independent opinions. What a gap that size tells you is that the credit rewards its own reading, and that any yield quoted on it is being set by whichever view the buyer holds.
Turn the curve around
What you earn and what you pay are the same market
A yield is a lender's view of a borrower. Sit on the other side of the table and the identical curve is what credit costs you.
When you buy a company's bond at eight percent, you are that company's lender at eight percent. When your own business borrows, a bank prices you off a benchmark that moves with the same government curve everything else is quoted against. The bank loan-rate ladder shows those benchmarks across every lender that publishes them, and the business credit hub breaks them out by the kind of facility you are actually asking for.
That symmetry is the practical close to this series. If your surplus cash is earning less than your working-capital line is costing, the arithmetic is worth doing before the next quarter. The working-capital cycle and EMI calculators do the sums, and the funding benchmark shows what the institutions on both sides of your balance sheet are paying for money.
Make it come to you
Checking on a schedule beats remembering to check
Everything in this series updates on its own. The useful step is arranging for the changes to reach you rather than waiting until something makes you look.
Capera runs a daily digest on four lanes: deposit cards when a bank republishes, bonds and rating actions for the issuers you follow, loan benchmarks when a lender moves, and the government curve underneath all of it. Set the ones that touch your money and let the rest go quiet.
Questions people ask
Does a credit rating change after a bond is issued?
Yes, and that is the whole point of surveillance. The agency reviews the issuer periodically and moves the grade as its view changes, so a bond sold as AAA years ago may carry a different grade today. The prospectus keeps the rating it was issued with, which is why the current grade is the one worth watching.
Why do two agencies give the same company different ratings?
A rating is an opinion formed with the agency's own methodology, not a measured quantity, so independent analysts can reach different conclusions from the same accounts. Most multi-rated issuers in India carry grades that agree or sit within a notch of each other. A handful sit much further apart, and that gap is useful information: it marks a credit where reasonable people disagree, which is a signal to read the underlying documents yourself.
How do I keep track of rating changes on bonds I hold?
Watch the current grade rather than the one on the offer document, and check it on a schedule rather than when something prompts you. Capera publishes every issuer-level action across India's traded corporate debt daily, and you can subscribe to a digest so the changes arrive without you going to look for them.
Does a downgrade mean the bond price falls?
Not mechanically. A downgrade is the agency's view that credit risk has increased, while the price reflects that view plus tenor, liquidity and who happens to be buying. Plenty of downgraded issuers have bonds that barely trade at all, so a rating action and a price move are separate events. Look at where the bond is actually clearing before drawing a conclusion.
How does the yield I earn relate to the rate I would pay to borrow?
They are two sides of one market. The government curve sets the floor, banks price loans off benchmarks that move with it, and companies issue bonds at a spread over it. When the curve shifts, deposit cards, bond yields and loan rates all move, though rarely at the same speed. Watching all three together tells you more than watching any one of them.
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Information, not advice
Capera is not a registered investment adviser and nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy, hold or sell any deposit or security. Every figure here is a published rate or a last traded price, shown so you can compare like with like and ask better questions. What you do with it stays your decision, and it is worth taking professional advice before you act. Read the full terms.
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