Notably, as subprime losses forced the credit rating agencies to downgrade what had been highly rated mortgage-backed securities, investors also came to doubt the reliability of ratings that had been awarded to other highly complex securities. As a result, investors became much more cautious and reversed their aggressive risk-taking of the credit boom period.
The resulting pullback affected a much broader range of securities, including leveraged and syndicated loans, asset-backed commercial paper, commercial mortgage-backed securities, and a variety of structured credit products. Large financial institutions, especially in the United States and Europe, were particularly affected by these events, having reported a total of roughly $  1  2  Bernanke (2005).