Patent ID: 7827080

Claim:
A method for visually presenting information related to fixed income security ratings, comprising: storing a first symbolic rating for a fixed income security in a storage device coupled to a hardware processor, the first symbolic rating received from a first rating institution that uses a first symbolic rating scheme to evaluate a credit quality of the fixed income security, wherein the first symbolic rating scheme includes a first plurality of investment grade symbolic ratings and a first plurality of speculative grade symbolic ratings to indicate credit qualities for fixed income securities; storing a second symbolic rating for the fixed income security in the storage device coupled to the hardware processor, the second symbolic rating received from a second rating institution that uses a second symbolic rating scheme to evaluate the credit quality of the fixed income security, wherein the second symbolic rating scheme includes a second plurality of investment grade symbolic ratings and a second plurality of speculative grade symbolic ratings to indicate credit qualities for fixed income securities; mapping, on the hardware processor, the first symbolic rating and the second symbolic rating for the fixed income security to a third symbolic rating scheme that provides a uniform scale to represent the credit quality of the fixed income security; converting, on the hardware processor, the first symbolic rating and the second symbolic rating for the fixed income security into a rating representation within the uniform scale, wherein the rating representation represents the credit quality of the fixed income security as a function of the first symbolic rating and the second symbolic rating; and generating, on the hardware processor, a visual presentation of information related to a fixed income capital market for display to a user, wherein the generated visual presentation includes at least a visualization of the rating representation.