Bob Litan of the Brookings Institution recently penned an excellent overview of the issues surrounding derivatives regulation, with a particular focus on credit default swaps (CDS). “The Derivative Dealers’ Club and Derivatives Markets Reform: A Guide for Policy Makers, and Other Interested Parties,” is really two pieces in one: a primer on derivatives policy and a warning about the power that a few firms now exercise over CDS markets.
Bob’s recommendations for reform (which I have numbered for convenience) are:
1. Induce or require “standardized” derivatives to be “cleared” on central clearinghouses rather than handled by dealers, acting on behalf of each of the parties (the buyer and seller) to these contracts.
2. Establish the conditions that will induce derivatives that are centrally cleared to be traded on exchanges or an equivalent transparent platform, as is now the case generally with stocks and futures contracts.
3. Ensure that adequate reserves – in the form of capital or margin – are held against all trades that are not centrally cleared.
4. Require the margin or collateral backing derivatives positions to be held either in segregated accounts or by third parties (such as a central clearinghouse) so that these funds cannot be co-mingled with other assets of dealers.
5. For derivatives that are both centrally cleared and traded on exchanges, regulators should ensure that the transaction prices and volumes of derivatives transactions are posted promptly on the equivalent of a “ticker” (post-trade transparency), while also ensuring that the prices at which buyers are willing to trade (the “bids”) and sellers willing to sell (the “asks”) are made public so that all parties, not just the dealers, know the state of the market at any given time (pre-trade transparency). I believe that a price ticker, or something close to it, should be in place even without central clearing and/or exchange trading.
Of course, much of the heavy lifting will be deciding which derivatives are “standardized.”
Mortgage Derivatives Explained in New Practical Guidebook
By: Carrie Bay 09/29/2010
The multifaceted and vast derivatives market can be thorny for even the sharpest of minds. But Udo Onwuachi, a former mortgage trader and authority on collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) derivatives, says he aims to introduce agency CMO derivatives to a much broader
audience – an audience that may still be leery of mortgage bonds after the credit crisis fallout.
Onwuachi’s book, “Trading & Valuing Agency CMO Derivatives, A Reference Guide, Part Art, Part Science,” arrived in stores September 10th. Published by Amazon Books, it is a practical guide to trading mortgage derivatives, running a hedge fund, or for funds looking to allocate money to specialty fund managers, Onwuachi explained.
“So many pension funds will not be able to meet their obligations and are increasing the percentage their members have to contribute,” Onwuachi said, “instead of changing their investment strategy by buying U.S. government backed MBS [mortgage-backed securities] and plain vanilla agency CMO bonds and CMO derivatives to protect against inflation and interest rate hikes.”
“Trading & Valuing Agency CMO Derivatives” is available September 10th in bookstores and online at Amazon.com.
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Bob’s recommendations for reform (which I have numbered for convenience) are: