Securitisation
The ABX index: A pricing conundrum
The liquidity crisis in the ABS market has led to investors using the ABX index as a valuation tool for individual securities - something the index was never designed for. Ben Logan explains the ramifications of this valuation practice
The squeeze is on - The clampdown on CDO ratings
The rating agencies have faced a barrage of criticism over their role in last year's subprime meltdown. This year they have been focusing on ensuring that a repeat of the ABS problems do not occur in other segments of the structured credit market. But…
Column: Nigel Sillis
The structured products that were once viewed as the F1 cars of the financial world - complex, efficient, high-performance - are now looking more like exhibits from Wacky Races
Legal Spotlight
ABS investors may shudder at the mention of the word 'subprime', but that shouldn't deter issuers from using securitisation to raise capital. In our special extended feature, Neal Handa and Bruce Bloomingdale look at how the credit crisis has affected…
Discorso chiuso?
Cartolarizzazioni
La tabella della discordia
Basilea 2
FGIC could be first to split
The monoline insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC) might be the first to split its municipal bond business from its troubled structured credit arm.
Banks pack ailing debt into PDCF collateral
Investment banks could be getting rid of unsaleable high-risk loans by using them as collateral to borrow funds from the Federal Reserve through the primary dealer credit facility (PDCF).
Isda AGM: Regulatory scrutiny of derivatives likely, says Moulds
The derivatives industry faces a period of heightened scrutiny by regulators, mirroring the supervisory review in the wake of a series of mis-selling scandals in the 1990s, said Jonathan Moulds, president for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia at…
Retail investors hold key to Canadian ABCP restructuring
A vote on the Montreal Accord, the proposal to restructure C$33 billion (US$32.7 billion) of distressed non-bank Canadian asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP), is due on April 25. But with all votes counted as equal, satisfying the demands of…
Valuing CDOs of ABSs
Charles Smithson and Neil Pearson discuss the valuation of collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), with a close look at CDOs of subprime residential mortage-backed securities
Credit risk: learning from the crunch
New business opportunities bring new risks. The market innovations that helped precipitate the credit crisis demonstrate that a complex new approach to risk management is required - and that means thinking beyond models based on derivatives and Basel II,…
Structured squeeze
Japanese credit
Monolines - the nuclear option
XL Capital Assurance and Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC) face legal action by three banks after cancelling insurance contracts they had written on asset-backed securities transactions.
International regulators release risk management report
Daily news headlines
Banks relied too much on ratings, supervisors say
Regulators from France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the US say banks that suffered serious losses during the credit crisis often did so because of avoidable failures in risk monitoring and management.
Second life
Life insurance securitisation
Offshore insecurity
Securitisation
A clearer picture
Fraud has gone to the top of the postmortem on the US subprime debacle. To detect and prevent it, more information at the loan level is needed, and the standardisation of data would also help investors in mortgage-backed securities make better decisions,…