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An asset-backed securities index is a curated list of asset-backed security exposures that is used for performance bench-marking or trading.
The original asset-backed securities index was the ABX, a synthetic tradeable index sponsored by Markit (now IHS Markit), which referenced a basket of 20 subprime mortgage-backed securities.
On 17 January 2006, CDS Indexco and Markit launched ABX.HE, a subprime mortgage backed credit derivative index on home equity loans as assets, with plans to extend the index to other underlying assets, such as Credit Cards (ABX.CC), Student Loans (ABX.SL) and Auto Loans (ABX.AU). [1] In a marketing presentation [2] CDS IndexCo was described as the owner of the DJ CDX family of credit default swap (CDS) indices formed from a merger of the major CDS indices (iBoxx and Trac-X) in April 2004. It introduced a "second generation product such as index tranches and index options." [3]
They launched the Home Equity (ABX.HE) ABX on 19 January 2006. Advertised daily prices were availability on the Markit website. The purpose of the indices was to allow investors to trade exposures to the subprime market without holding the actual asset backed securities. The ABX.HE Index was created from "qualifying deals of 20 of the largest sub-prime home equity ABS shelf programs from the six month period preceding the roll." [4] The market makers of ABX.HE were listed as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Capital, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, RBS Greenwich, UBS and Wachovia. [5]
These investment firms had anticipated the subprime mortgage crisis. In 2006, Wall Street had introduced a new index, called the ABX, that became a way to invest in the direction of mortgage securities. The index allowed traders to bet on or against pools of mortgages with different risk characteristics, just as stock indexes enable traders to bet on whether the overall stock market, or technology stocks or bank stocks, will go up or down." [6]
Beginning in 2004, with housing prices soaring and the mortgage mania in full swing, Mr. Egol began creating the deals known as Abacus. From 2004 to 2008, Goldman issued 25 Abacus deals, according to Bloomberg, with a total value of $10.9 billion. According to a New York Times [6] article Goldman Sachs's trader Jonathan M. Egol created's Abacus mortgage-backed CDOs, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), beginning in 2004, with housing prices soaring and the mortgage mania in full swing. Goldman Sachs sold them to investors, and then bet short against them. [6]
On 14 November 2007, Markit acquired International Index Company and agreed to acquire CDS IndexCo. [7]
According to a [8] New York Times article, Goldman Sachs used an ABX index to bet against (i.e. short) the housing market in 2006. It also "began marketing short bets using the ABX index to hedge funds like Paulson & Company, Magnetar, and Soros Fund Management." [8] [6]
On Saturday/Sunday, November 5–6, 2011 in "Prime Signs of Pain Emerge", the Wall Street Journal [9] [10] offered an extensive and literate discussion of fall of the "PrimeX Index" [11] which (to paraphrase the WSJ) focuses on "prime-mortgage bonds" that are "supposed to be of high quality". WSJ Author [9] suggested that "Prime Mortgages" are now in increasingly deep trouble which portends a collapse in the value those securities thus mirroring the earlier collapse of subprime mortgages. [9] [10] Katy [9] pointed out that just as John Paulson bet against subprime mortgages (presumably in 2006-2008), a new class of speculators and hedgers are now lining up to bet that homeowners with prime-mortgages will walk away from their houses as their values go "under water". [9]
In finance, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, currency, or interest rate, and is often simply called the underlying. Derivatives can be used for a number of purposes, including insuring against price movements (hedging), increasing exposure to price movements for speculation, or getting access to otherwise hard-to-trade assets or markets.
A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a debt default or other credit event. That is, the seller of the CDS insures the buyer against some reference asset defaulting. The buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments to the seller and, in exchange, may expect to receive a payoff if the asset defaults.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many international financial centers. Goldman Sachs is the second-largest investment bank in the world by revenue and is ranked 55th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. In the Forbes Global 2000 of 2024, Goldman Sachs ranked 23rd. It is considered a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Board.
A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Like other private label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the cash flow the CDO collects from the pool of bonds or other assets it owns. Distinctively, CDO credit risk is typically assessed based on a probability of default (PD) derived from ratings on those bonds or assets.
An asset-backed security (ABS) is a security whose income payments, and hence value, are derived from and collateralized by a specified pool of underlying assets.
A credit default swap index is a credit derivative used to hedge credit risk or to take a position on a basket of credit entities. Unlike a credit default swap, which is an over the counter credit derivative, a credit default swap index is a completely standardized credit security and may therefore be more liquid and trade at a smaller bid–offer spread. This means that it can be cheaper to hedge a portfolio of credit default swaps or bonds with a CDS index than it would be to buy many single name CDS to achieve a similar effect. Credit-default swap indexes are benchmarks for protecting investors owning bonds against default, and traders use them to speculate on changes in credit quality.
The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. The crisis led to a severe economic recession, with millions losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt. The U.S. government intervened with a series of measures to stabilize the financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The subprime mortgage crisis impact timeline lists dates relevant to the creation of a United States housing bubble, the 2005 housing bubble burst and the subprime mortgage crisis which developed during 2007 and 2008. It includes United States enactment of government laws and regulations, as well as public and private actions which affected the housing industry and related banking and investment activity. It also notes details of important incidents in the United States, such as bankruptcies and takeovers, and information and statistics about relevant trends. For more information on reverberations of this crisis throughout the global financial system see 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Markit was a British financial information and services company that focused on credit derivative pricing. It was founded in 2003 and merged in 2016 with IHS to form IHS Markit.
The loan credit default swap index (LCDX) is a loan-only credit default swap index created by CDS Index Company (CDSIndexCo). The LCDX index is a tradeable index with 100 equally weighted underlying single-name loan-only credit default swaps (LCDS).
A synthetic CDO is a variation of a CDO that generally uses credit default swaps and other derivatives to obtain its investment goals. As such, it is a complex derivative financial security sometimes described as a bet on the performance of other mortgage products, rather than a real mortgage security. The value and payment stream of a synthetic CDO is derived not from cash assets, like mortgages or credit card payments – as in the case of a regular or "cash" CDO—but from premiums paying for credit default swap "insurance" on the possibility of default of some defined set of "reference" securities—based on cash assets. The insurance-buying "counterparties" may own the "reference" securities and be managing the risk of their default, or may be speculators who've calculated that the securities will default.
This article provides background information regarding the subprime mortgage crisis. It discusses subprime lending, foreclosures, risk types, and mechanisms through which various entities involved were affected by the crisis.
Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis is the impact of credit rating agencies (CRAs) in the American subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008 that led to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Magnetar Capital LLC is a hedge fund based in Evanston, Illinois. The firm was founded in 2005 and invests in fixed-income, energy, quantitative, and event-driven strategies. The firm was actively involved in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market during the 2006–2007 period. In some articles critical of Magnetar Capital, the firm's arbitrage strategy for CDOs is described as the "Magnetar trade".
Paulson & Co., Inc. is a family office based in New York City. Previously, it was a hedge fund established by John Paulson in 1994. Specializing in "global mergers, event arbitrage, and credit strategies", the firm had a relatively low profile on Wall Street until its hugely successful bet against the subprime mortgage market in 2007. At one time the company had offices in London and Dublin.
Many factors directly and indirectly serve as the causes of the Great Recession that started in 2008 with the US subprime mortgage crisis. The major causes of the initial subprime mortgage crisis and the following recession include lax lending standards contributing to the real-estate bubbles that have since burst; U.S. government housing policies; and limited regulation of non-depository financial institutions. Once the recession began, various responses were attempted with different degrees of success. These included fiscal policies of governments; monetary policies of central banks; measures designed to help indebted consumers refinance their mortgage debt; and inconsistent approaches used by nations to bail out troubled banking industries and private bondholders, assuming private debt burdens or socializing losses.
Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse is a report on the 2007–2008 financial crisis issued on April 13, 2011 by the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The 639-page report was issued under the chairmanship of Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, and is colloquially known as the Levin-Coburn Report. After conducting "over 150 interviews and depositions, consulting with dozens of government, academic, and private sector experts" found that "the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products, undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street." In an interview, Senator Levin noted that "The overwhelming evidence is that those institutions deceived their clients and deceived the public, and they were aided and abetted by deferential regulators and credit ratings agencies who had conflicts of interest." By the end of their two-year investigation, the staff amassed 56 million pages of memos, documents, prospectuses and e-mails. The report, which contains 2,800 footnotes and references thousands of internal documents focused on four major areas of concern regarding the failure of the financial system: high risk mortgage lending, failure of regulators to stop such practices, inflated credit ratings, and abuses of the system by investment banks. The Report also issued several recommendations for future action regarding each of these categories.
The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History is a debut non-fiction book by American journalist Gregory Zuckerman. The book was released on November 3, 2009, by Crown Business. The book investigates the reasons and consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis and the role that hedge fund manager John Paulson played in those events.
Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, has been the subject of controversies. The company has been criticized for lack of ethical standards, working with dictatorial regimes, close relationships with the U.S. federal government via a "revolving door" of former employees, and driving up prices of commodities through futures speculation. It has also been criticized by its employees for 100-hour work weeks, high levels of employee dissatisfaction among first-year analysts, abusive treatment by superiors, a lack of mental health resources, and extremely high levels of stress in the workplace leading to physical discomfort.
SEC v. Goldman Sachs & Co, civ 3229 was a civil court case in front of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Goldman Sachs (GS&Co) and Fabrice Tourre an employee of GS&Co relating to the ABACUS 2007-AC1 CDO. The court found against the defendant which resulted in the largest fine in the SEC history at the time of $550m.
Index Tracking Credit-Worthy Borrowers Is on the Decline; Hedge Funds Go Short