Things that make you say 'Hmm....' If I can't read the annual report, should I invest? A cautionary tale reminiscent of "if you have to ask you probably can't afford it." "We find that less readable annual reports are associated with less favorable credit ratings from S&P and Moody's and more frequent and larger magnitude disagreements between S&P and Moody's about the initial rating of a new bond. We also find evidence that less readable annual reports are associated with higher costs of debt financing. In terms of magnitude, we find that if a company improved its readability from the 75th to 50th percentile in our sample, then it would save approximately $440,000 annually in interest for a bond with a face value of $430 million, the average in our sample." An excerpt from Does Readability of Financial Disclosures Affect the Bond Market? in The CLS Blue Sky Blog