Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Since its inception, the derivatives market has echoed the fairground hawkers’ call to “scream if you want to go faster.” Among the new derivatives, collateralized-debt obligations (CDOs) were particularly hot.
To make a CDO, bankers bundle together a package of other kinds of securities, such as corporate bonds, asset-backed securities (ABSs) or [...]

structured products, subprime, US Hide

Layers of money managers that don’t bear the brunt of losses but walk away with big payouts when things go well have turned the US economy to a type of “ersatz capitalism,” Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University professor and Nobel laureate, told CNBC Tuesday.
“An awful lot of people are not managing their own money,” Stiglitz said. [...]

Bank failures, investment banks, Risk Management, structured products Hide

In late October 2007, as the financial markets were starting to come unglued, a Goldman Sachs trader, Jonathan M. Egol, received very good news. At 37, he was named a managing director at the firm.
Mr. Egol, a Princeton graduate, had risen to prominence inside the bank by creating mortgage-related securities, named Abacus, that were at [...]

Abacus, ABX, cdo, Deutsche Bank, goldman, investment banks, morgan stanley, structured products, Tricadia Hide

LONDON, ENGLAND (AFP) – Britain’s financial watchdog said on Tuesday it had fined Japanese bank Nomura 1.75 million pounds ($4 million) for “widespread” failures of systems and controls used in the trading of “high-risk” products.
Nomura avoided a bigger fine because it cooperated fully and swiftly with investigators regarding “mis-marking” at its London-based subsidiary Nomura International, the [...]

Risk Management, structured products, UK Hide

By GENEVIEVE CUA
The failure of Lehman Brothers gave structured products a bad name but wealthy investors are warming to derivative-based solutions again. But events of the past year have left their mark on such products as structures are now simpler and tenors shorter.
Barclays Capital’s head of investor solutions Philippe El-Asmar says issuance in the second [...]

investment banks, Singapore, structured products Hide