Modern Credit Derivatives
Course Outline
The credit derivative market has changed substantially in the last two years and an understanding of these instruments is integral to making sense of today's financial markets. This three-day course provides a comprehensive view of how modern credit derivatives are used for risk management, to create profitable opportunities through trading and arbitrage, and to create liquidity. A thorough analysis of the credit crisis, what went wrong and the future of credit derivatives will be considered. The course will provide an in-depth description of all credit products including Default Swaps, Total Return Swaps, Credit Linked Notes, CDOs and CLOs as well as addressing the various motivations and historical development of this market. Up to half of the seminar is devoted to small group sessions with practical exercises, case studies and simulations. Participants take away worked examples for use after the course. New Case Study: the evolving credit crisis and its implications for the future Understand why the "crunch" occurred and the role that credit derivatives played in the development of the situation and the various roles that credit derivatives will play in solving the crisis.
- How credit derivatives can help financial market participants mitigate the effects and recover from the aftermath of recent volatility
- How firms and investors are using credit derivatives to profit from turmoil in the credit markets and to mitigate their ongoing risks
- Lessons learned for both the sell and buy sides in the credit markets
- How the credit derivative markets and regulation are changing as a result
- Exploration of how a similar crisis might occur again and how to be prepared
Who The Course is For
- Traders
- Loan officers
- Risk managers
- Credit officers
- Fixed Income professionals
- Corporate bankers
- Regulators
- Investors
- Legal
- Bank and middle office
- Product control
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Prior Knowledge
Participants only need a general knowledge of the capital markets for days 1 and 2. For day 3, some basic quantitative knowledge for covering the pricing aspects will be required.
This
program is eligible for 24 Continuing Education credit hours from the
CFA Institute. If you are a CFA Institute member, CE credit for your participation
in this program will be automatically recorded in your CE Diary.
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Day One
Credit Default Swaps
Introduction
- History of credit derivatives
- Types of credit derivatives
- Credit events
- Credit derivatives: useful tools or weapons of destruction?
- Why did the credit crisis happen?
- What can we learn?
The Credit default swap (CDS)
- CDS mechanics
- CDS uses
- Trading CDSs
- The restructuring credit event
- ISDA 2009 and the big and small bang protocols
- Current European vs American CDS conventions
Workshop: simple spread based pricing of a CDS
CDS Risks
- The cheapest to deliver option
- Delivery squeezes
- Auction protocol
- Settlement risk
- Annuity risk
- Counterparty risk
The CDS - Bond Relationship
- Hedging a risky bond with a CDS
- Asset swaps (ASW) - mechanics and uses
- Credit linked notes (CLN) - mechanics and uses
- Total return swaps (TRS) - mechanics and uses
- What drives the bond-CDS basis?
Workshop: Understanding the relationship between CDS, ASW, CLN, TRS and risky bond
Day Two
Portfolio Credit Derivatives
Index Products
- What is a CDS index?
- Applications of indices
- Global index families
- Trading a CDS index
- Roll mechanics
Workshop: The basis between a CDS index and a portfolio of CDS
Options
- Single name CDS options
- Cancellable CDS
- Loan CDS (LCDS)
- CMDS (constant maturity CDS)
- Index options
Workshop: Pricing a cancellable CDS
Baskets
- First to default structures (FTD)
- Nth to default structures (NTD)
- The importance of correlation
- Intuitive pricing of FTD and NTD
Workshop: simple pricing of a FTD and NTD
Collateralisation Debt Obligations (CDOs)
- Index tranches
- Synthetic CDOs
- Cash CDOs
- CDOs squared and CDO of ABS
Day Three
Practical Pricing and Trading of Credit Derivatives
Introduction to pricing
- Why do models fail?
- Default probability
- Recovery rates
- Bond and CDS pricing
- Estimating default probability
- Historical data
- Merton models
- CDS spreads
Pricing CDS
- Survival probabilities and hazard rates
- How to price a risky bond
- How to price a CDS
- Calibrating a credit curve
Workshop: Calculating implied default probabilities and constructing a credit curve
Pricing CDOs - Part I
- Credit portfolio models
- Pricing formula for a CDO
- The Gaussian Copula approach
- Monte Carlo simulation
- Approximate implementations
Workshop: Pricing a CDO
Pricing CDOs - Part II
- Why did CDO models fail so badly?
- Base correlation
- Interpolation methods
- Pricing bespoke CDOs
- Why and how base correlation fails
Workshop: Using base correlation to price a CDO and avoiding the pitfalls
