Cover story
Hedging the hard way
Quanto options have stung dealers' equity derivatives books after the unexpected spikes in volatility and correlation that followed the Lehman Brothers collapse, while structured product issuers have been hit by plummeting dividend expectations and…
Beyond the AMA
Management
Lehman restructured
The collapse of Lehman Brothers left billions of dollars of structured notes with unhedged exposures, prompting issuers to scramble for new counterparties to restructure trades. Meanwhile, some structured product providers have offered hope to investors…
Gambling on dividends
Dividends have caused sizeable losses for dealers and investors over the past few months, as a precipitous fall in expectations has hit structured product issuers and those who participated in dividend swaps. Mark Pengelly investigates
Crunch time for crime
Financial Crime
Rocked by counterparty risk
The demise of Lehman Brothers has triggered fresh concerns about counterparty risk, creating a wave of novations and forcing dealers to think harder about the possibility of another major derivatives counterparty defaulting. Mark Pengelly reports
An agent for change
Arnoud Vossen, the new secretary-general of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, believes the best way to handle change is to focus on the journey, not the destination. Here, he talks to David Benyon about European supervision in the current…
Lehman Brothers losses loom large
The collapse of Lehman Brothers has shocked investors in structured products. Previously immune to the financial crisis in the immediate markets that surround them, those that bought products from the defunct US investment bank are now contemplating…
O Brothers, where art thou?
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, coming on the back of the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sent market participants rushing to compute their exposures and replace affected hedges. How did the market bear up? By Peter Madigan and Nick…
Hold steady
Management
The price is right for inflation
Inflation is rarely out of the headlines these days, whether it is soaring petrol or gas prices, or the price of staple foods such as bread and rice. And this daily flow of news has heightened awareness among retail and high-net-worth investors of the…
Rising above it?
Merrill Lynch's decision to ditch its collateralised debt obligation portfolio in July has been spun as a brave attempt to draw a line under its structured credit losses. But how good is the deal, and does it represent a template for other firms…
The rates escape
A sudden inversion of the euro interest rate curve in June caught dealers and investors by surprise, causing losses for those that had put on curve steepener trades. Dealers rushed to hedge their short gamma positions, forcing the curve to invert further…
Back in Black
New York-based asset manager BlackRock's buying up of distressed mortgage portfolios - most notably its purchase of UBS's portfolio of subprime and other non-agency securities totalling approximately $22 billion - has been making headlines. What does it…
Credit too hot to handle
Some distributors in Asia are offering first-to-default retail credit notes that give sovereign exposure, signalling a revival of interest in credit. But heavy mark-to-market losses and the use of CDOs as underlying collateral in previous issues have…
Sunk by correlation
Equity derivatives dealers faced a grim picture across global markets earlier this year, with steep rises in correlation and volatility together with a slump in dividend expectations decimating exotic books. How have dealers responded? By Mark Pengelly
The good, the bad and the ugly
Last month saw US asset manager Pimco triple its holding of mortgage debt, UBS sell subprime loan positions worth $22 billion to a new fund managed by BlackRock, and HBOS get the first residential mortgage-backed securitisation issue in nearly a year off…
Prime suspect
Knowing the exact quality of the loans in a securitisation pool is key if investor appetite for mortgage securities is to return. Chris Ames, an asset-backed portfolio manager at Schroders, discusses what's prime, what's not, and what has to happen for…
The commodities wheel of fortune
Cover Story
Clearing the way ahead
The major credit derivatives dealers, along with the Clearing Corporation, are working to develop a central clearing house for over-the-counter credit derivatives trades. How will this initiative work, and are there are any rival schemes in the pipeline?…
Growing ambition
The appointment of Doug Naidus as global co-head of residential mortgage origination and trading at Deutsche Bank is a reflection of how much has changed since the bank bought MortgageIT last year. Here, he talks with Mortgage Risk about the firm's move…
Promising developments
Historically, cross-border mortgage lending has been a limited market with select players offering piecemeal loans to those looking for holiday homes. Now originators are assessing the potential of so-called emerging mortgage markets, where new ventures…
Back to basics: non-determinant deposits
Liquidity and Deposits