Sub­prime loan per­for­mance has been strong in the past few years, but the poten­tial for increas­ing com­pe­ti­tion leads senior ana­lyst Peter McNally and senior VP Joseph Snailer of Moody’s Investors Ser­vice to fear “losses could increase if a race for prof­its and mar­ket share results in weaker under­writ­ing stan­dards,” espe­cially with the increase of small, spe­cialty finance com­pa­nies that exhibit “spec­u­la­tive characteristics.”