Central banks
Power in numbers
Amid the ongoing M&A wave in the exchange and interdealer broker space, six smaller independent brokers have joined forces in a bid to stay afloat in ever-deepening liquidity pools. David Watkins reports
Buckle up
Market Analysis
Talk is cheap
Rating agencies
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…
Structural modelling of subprime mortgages
With the economy still suffering from the waves of the credit crunch, triggered by a housing price slump, Yong Kim provides a structural model of subprime mortgages based on housing market risks. Given the enormity of the subprime mortgage market failure…
Liquid gold?
Covered bonds
Cash bonds take a different track
As anyone on the financial markets rollercoaster will know, predicting the future path of your investments is next to impossible, particularly in the current economic climate. But a dislocation has appeared between the equity/CDS markets, which are…
Jeff Sprecher & Sunil Hirani
The chairman and CEO of derivatives exchange ICE and the CEO of derivatives processing firm Creditex talk about the companies' recent merger, and how the CDS markets will cope with a unique set of challenges ahead
Gulf states face inflation threat to single currency
Plans by the Gulf Co-operation Council to launch a single currency by 2010 are beginning to look optimistic, with the spectre of runaway inflation throwing the whole scheme into doubt
Called to account
Dealers have criticised fair value accounting on illiquid assets as exacerbating the subprime crisis. A growing number of banks and industry bodies have called for a suspension of mark-to-market accounting for illiquid instruments. Are the accounting…
CDS clearing house tops regulators' to-do list in drive to tackle counterparty risk
The New York Fed is keen to establish a central clearing house for CDS, with CCorp poised to launch such a service. But will the recently merged Creditex-ICE throw its hat into the ring?
LDI and beyond
Pension Risk Management
Learning from pressure
Practitioner profile