The corporate credit rating on NRG Energy Inc. reflects the company's fundamental exposure to volatile commodity markets and weakening financial risk profile, balanced by a hedging program and ongoing efforts by the company to reduce the influence of natural gas price volatility on its cash flows. In addition, the presence of the retail business--which is somewhat countercyclical to wholesale generation--gives the company a "fair" business risk profile. The recovery rating on the senior secured and senior unsecured notes is '1' and '3', representing very high recovery of principal (90% to 100%) and meaningful recovery of principal (50% to 70% recovery), respectively. NRG's trailing 12-month performance ended March 2012 has lagged our expectation due to the following: Extreme weather in August
