Credit Derivatives and Structured Credit Trading

Over the past decade, credit derivatives have emerged as the key financial innovation in global capital markets. At end 2004, the market size hit $6.4 billion (in notional amounts) from virtually nothing in 1995. This rise has been spurred by the imperative for banks to better manage their risks, not least credit risks, and the appetite shown by institutional investors and hedge funds for innovative, high yielding structured investment products. As a result, growth in collateralized debt obligations and other second-generation products, such as credit indices, is currently phenomenal. It is enabled by the standardization and increased liquidity in credit default swaps – the building block of the credit derivatives market. Written by market practitioners and specialists, this book covers the fundamentals of the credit derivatives and structured credit market, including in-depth product descriptions, analysis of real transactions, market overview, pricing models, banks business models. It is recommended reading for students in business schools and financial courses, academics, and professionals working in investment and asset management, banking, corporate treasury and the capital markets. Highlights include: Written by market practitioners and specialists with first-hand experience in the credit derivatives and structured credit market A clearly-written, pedagogical book with numerous illustrations Detailed review of real-case transactions A comprehensive historical perspective on market developments including up-to-date analysis of the latest trends

Updated coverage of structured credit products with in-depth coverage of the latest developments Structured credit products are one of today's fastest growing investment and risk management mechanisms, and a focus of innovation and creativity in the capital markets. The building blocks of these products are credit derivatives, which are among the most widely used products in finance. This book offers a succinct and focused description of the main credit derivative instruments, as well as the more complex products such as synthetic collateralized debt obligations. This new edition features updated case studies from Europe and Asia, the latest developments in synthetic structures, the impact of the subprime meltdown, along with models and teaching aids. Moorad Choudhry returns with this excellent update of the credit derivatives market. The second edition of his classic work is, like the subject matter itself, at the forefront of the financial industry. It deserves a wide readership. —Dr Didier Joannas Regional Director, Thomson Reuters, Hong Kong This is the perfect companion for both experienced and entry level professionals working in the structured credit fraternity. It is an erudite, insightful and enjoyable read that successfully demystifies one of the most topical subject areas in banking today, while also providing important practical examples that link the theory to the job itself. —Dr James Berriman Global Pricing Unit, Royal Bank of Scotland Moorad Choudhry has earned a deserved reputation from both academics and practitioners as one of the leading practical yet rigorous authors of finance books. In this Second Edition, his practical knowledge of credit derivatives keeps the audience engaged with straightforward explanations of complicated structures, and an accessible level of mathematical sophistication necessary to understand structured credit products. The author offers complete, rigorous analysis while avoiding overuse of mathematical formulas and carefully balanced practical and theoretical aspects of the subject. I strongly recommend this book for those wishing to gain an intuitive understanding of structured credit products, from practitioners to students of finance! —Mohamoud Barre Dualeh Senior Product Developer, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, UAE This is THE book for credit derivative trading. From first steps to advanced trading strategies, this is invaluable. Well written and insightful, perfect for ad hoc reference or reading cover to cover. —Andrew Benson ETF Market Making, KBC Peel Hunt, London Professor Choudhry has inspired me to really get into credit derivatives. It’s great to be lectured by someone with such energy and practical hands-on experience, as well as the ability to get stuck into the details. —George Whicheloe Equity-Linked Technology, Merrill Lynch, London Moorad Choudhry is Head of Treasury at Europe Arab Bank plc in London. He is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics at London Metropolitan University.

The credit derivatives industry has come under close scrutiny over the past few years, with the recent financial crisis highlighting the instability of a number of credit structures and throwing the industry into turmoil. What has been made clear by recent events is the necessity for a thorough understanding of credit derivatives by all parties involved in a transaction, especially traders, structurers, quants and investors. Fully revised and updated to take in to account the new products, markets and risk requirements post financial crisis, Credit Derivatives: Trading, Investing and Risk Management, Second Edition, covers the subject from a real world perspective, tackling issues such as liquidity, poor data, and credit spreads, to the latest innovations in portfolio products, hedging and risk management techniques. The book concentrates on practical issues and develops an understanding of the products through applications and detailed analysis of the risks and alternative means of trading. It provides: a description of the key products, applications, and an analysis of typical trades including basis trading, hedging, and credit structuring; analysis of the industry standard 'default and recovery' and Copula models including many examples, and a description of the models' shortcomings; tools and techniques for the management of a portfolio or book of credit risks including appropriate and inappropriate methods of correlation risk management; a thorough analysis of counterparty risk; an intuitive understanding of credit correlation in reality and in the Copula model. The book is thoroughly updated to reflect the changes the industry has seen over the past 5 years, notably with an analysis of the lead up and causes of the credit crisis. It contains 50% new material, which includes copula valuation and hedging, portfolio optimisation, portfolio products and correlation risk management, pricing in illiquid environments, chapters on the evolution of credit management systems, the credit meltdown and new chapters on the implementation and testing of credit derivative models and systems. The book is accompanied by a website which contains tools for credit derivatives valuation and risk management, illustrating the models used in the book and also providing a valuation toolkit.

The credit derivatives market has developed rapidly over the last ten years and is now well established in the banking community and is increasingly making its presence felt in all areas of finance. This book covers the subject from credit bonds, asset swaps and related ‘real world’ issues such as liquidity, poor data, and credit spreads, to the latest innovations in portfolio products, hedging and risk management techniques. The book concentrates on practical issues and develops an understanding of the products through applications and detailed analysis of the risks and alternative means of trading. Credit Derivatives: Risk Management, Trading and Investing provides: A description of the key products, applications, and an analysis of typical trades including basis trading, hedging, and credit structuring Analysis of the industry standard ‘default and recovery’ and Copula models including many examples, and a description of the models’ shortcomings Tools and techniques for the management of a portfolio or book of credit risks including appropriate and inappropriate methods of correlation risk management A thorough analysis of counterparty risk An intuitive understanding of credit correlation in reality and in the Copula model The CD in the back of this book includes an Evaluation Version of Mathcad® 12 Single User Edition, which is reproduced by permission. This software is a fully-functional trial of Mathcad which will expire 30 days from installation. For technical support or more information see http://www.mathcad.com.

The credit derivatives market is booming and, for the first time, expanding into the banking sector which previously has had very little exposure to quantitative modeling. This phenomenon has forced a large number of professionals to confront this issue for the first time. Credit Derivatives Pricing Models provides an extremely comprehensive overview of the most current areas in credit risk modeling as applied to the pricing of credit derivatives. As one of the first books to uniquely focus on pricing, this title is also an excellent complement to other books on the application of credit derivatives. Based on proven techniques that have been tested time and again, this comprehensive resource provides readers with the knowledge and guidance to effectively use credit derivatives pricing models. Filled with relevant examples that are applied to real-world pricing problems, Credit Derivatives Pricing Models paves a clear path for a better understanding of this complex issue. Dr. Philipp J. Sch?nbucher is a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, and has degrees in mathematics from Oxford University and a PhD in economics from Bonn University. He has taught various training courses organized by ICM and CIFT, and lectured at risk conferences for practitioners on credit derivatives pricing, credit risk modeling, and implementation.

Modelling Single-name and Multi-name Credit Derivatives presents an up-to-date, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the pricing and risk-management of credit derivatives. It is both a detailed introduction to credit derivative modelling and a reference for those who are already practitioners. This book is up-to-date as it covers many of the important developments which have occurred in the credit derivatives market in the past 4-5 years. These include the arrival of the CDS portfolio indices and all of the products based on these indices. In terms of models, this book covers the challenge of modelling single-tranche CDOs in the presence of the correlation skew, as well as the pricing and risk of more recent products such as constant maturity CDS, portfolio swaptions, CDO squareds, credit CPPI and credit CPDOs.

A comprehensive resource providing extensive coverage of the state of the art in credit secruritisations, derivatives, and risk management Credit Securitisations and Derivatives is a one-stop resource presenting the very latest thinking and developments in the field of credit risk. Written by leading thinkers from academia, the industry, and the regulatory environment, the book tackles areas such as business cycles; correlation modelling and interactions between financial markets, institutions, and instruments in relation to securitisations and credit derivatives; credit portfolio risk; credit portfolio risk tranching; credit ratings for securitisations; counterparty credit risk and clearing of derivatives contracts and liquidity risk. As well as a thorough analysis of the existing models used in the industry, the book will also draw on real life cases to illustrate model performance under different parameters and the impact that using the wrong risk measures can have.

All the information you need to extend your credit lines worldwide! As more and more companies expand globally, their credit managers must learn to understand and implement foreign concepts and practices while navigating different cultures and traditions. But working across borders and time zones has its pitfalls and credit managers must be well informed and up-to-date to avoid expensive mistakes and maintain their credit standards. International Credit and Collections brings together enlightening contributions from international experts to provide complete coverage of important issues and concepts, including: Country risk, credit insurance, and forfaiting Cultural differences and awareness issues: Latin America, the Pacific Rim, and Europe Collections expectations, issues, and practices Government programs Credit reporting practices: credit applications and letters of credit The Internet and new technology Whether you are new to the global marketplace, or need to stay up-to-date on new procedures and standards, International Credit and Collections will help you safely and efficiently take your credit operation global.

Credit derivatives have been instrumental in the recent increase in securitization activity. The complex nature and the size of the market have given rise to very complex counterparty credit risks. The Lehman failure has shown that these issues can paralyse the financial markets, and the need for detailed understanding has never been greater. The Art of Credit Derivatives shows practitioners how to put a framework in place which will support the securitization activity. By showing the models that support this activity and linking them with very practical examples, the authors show why a mind-shift within the quant community is needed – a move from simple modeling to a more hands on mindset where the modeler understands the trading implicitly. The book has been written in five parts, covering the modeling framework; single name corporate credit derivatives; multi name corporate credit derivatives; asset backed securities and dynamic credit portfolio management. Coverage includes: groundbreaking solutions to the inherent risks associated with investing in securitization instruments how to use the standardized credit indices as the most appropriate instruments in price discovery processes and why these indices are the essential tools for short term credit portfolio management why the dynamics of systemic correlation and the standardised credit indices are linked with leverage, and consequently the implications for liquidity and solvability of financial institutions how L?vy processes and long term memory processes are related to the understanding of economic activity why regulatory capital should be portfolio dependant and how to use stress tests and scenario analysis to model this how to put structured products in a mark-to market-environment, increasing transparency for accounting and compliance. This book will be invaluable reading for Credit Analysts, Quantitative Analysts, Credit Portfolio Managers, Academics and anyone interested in these complex yet important markets.

The book’s content is focused on rigorous and advanced quantitative methods for the pricing and hedging of counterparty credit and funding risk. The new general theory that is required for this methodology is developed from scratch, leading to a consistent and comprehensive framework for counterparty credit and funding risk, inclusive of collateral, netting rules, possible debit valuation adjustments, re-hypothecation and closeout rules. The book however also looks at quite practical problems, linking particular models to particular ‘concrete’ financial situations across asset classes, including interest rates, FX, commodities, equity, credit itself, and the emerging asset class of longevity. The authors also aim to help quantitative analysts, traders, and anyone else needing to frame and price counterparty credit and funding risk, to develop a ‘feel’ for applying sophisticated mathematics and stochastic calculus to solve practical problems. The main models are illustrated from theoretical formulation to final implementation with calibration to market data, always keeping in mind the concrete questions being dealt with. The authors stress that each model is suited to different situations and products, pointing out that there does not exist a single model which is uniformly better than all the others, although the problems originated by counterparty credit and funding risk point in the direction of global valuation. Finally, proposals for restructuring counterparty credit risk, ranging from contingent credit default swaps to margin lending, are considered.