When I was young, I (first) listened on the radio, then (later) watched on television, The Lone Ranger. After he and Tonto saved the town from evil marauders, the Lone Ranger would quietly exist toward the setting sun, leaving only a Silver Bullet as a reminder of all the good work they had performed for the citizens.

Now I’m an adult and know that there’s no such thing as a Silver Bullet capable of keeping us safe from hazard. Which is why I was so interested in a study recently released by the Rock Center for Corporate Governance, ("Rating the Ratings: How Good are Commercial Governance Ratings", May 2008).

Some of the more significant lessons from this comprehensive study by Robert Daines, Professor of Finance (with Ian Gow, Doctoral Candidate, and David Larcher, Professor of Accounting: are these:

1. at best, there is "only a tenuous link between the ratings and future performance of the companies."
2. in all three case (Audit Integrity, Governance Metrics International and The Corporate Library), the correlations [between their ratings and five metrics of future performance] were small and "did not appear to be useful."
3. In the case of industry giant, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), there was NO significant correlation.
4. There was essentially no relation between [ISS’s] governance ratings and ISS’s own proxy recommendations to shareholders.
5. There is surprisingly little correlation among the indices compiled by the ratings firms even thought they all use the same SEC public data.

"Given the time and money spent by public companies on improving governance ratings does not appear to result in significant value for shareholders."

Sorry, but it looks as if there still is no such thing as "a Silver Bullet."