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Finance and Financial Management

Journal of Financial Crises

Derivatives

Publication Year

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Full-Text Articles in Business

Lessons Learned: Eric Kolchinsky, Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber Apr 2022

Lessons Learned: Eric Kolchinsky, Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Eric Kolchinsky served as managing director of ratings for ABS CDOs (asset-backed security collateralized debt obligations) at Moody’s Investor Services from 2005 to 2007. Kolchinsky started his career in structured finance with stints at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. He joined Moody’s in 2000 as vice president for credit. In 2007, after Kolchinsky raised questions concerning the ratings of new deals in light of subprime downgrades, Moody’s removed him from his client-facing position. Kolchinsky supervised methodology for structured finance valuations at Moody’s Analytics for two years, before Moody’s suspended him altogether in 2009. Separated from Moody’s, Kolchinsky testified before Congress …


Lessons Learned: Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber Apr 2022

Lessons Learned: Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Steve Kasoff was employed at Elliott Management Corporation from 2003 until 2020. His responsibilities centered on developing the structured products and real estate groups at Elliott. He was made senior portfolio manager, a member of the firm’s management committee, and equity partner. Kasoff has extensive experience in the origination, trading, and management of structured products such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and mortgage-backed securities, including earlier posts at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers. He earned his BA in economics from Yale College and his MBA in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2016, …


Lessons Learned: Eric Dinallo, Maryann Haggerty Apr 2021

Lessons Learned: Eric Dinallo, Maryann Haggerty

Journal of Financial Crises

Eric Dinallo was New York State Superintendent of Insurance from January 2007 through July 2009. In New York, as throughout the United States, insurance companies are regulated at the state level. In his position as Superintendent, Dinallo oversaw the insurance operating companies of American International Group (AIG) within New York. AIG’s holding company, however, was supervised at the federal level. Much of AIG’s problems came from its non-insurance subsidiary AIG Financial Products (AIGFP), which was a major presence in the market for credit default swaps (CDS), a type of derivative that was a factor behind the 2007-09 financial crisis. This …


Basel Iii E: Synthetic Financing By Prime Brokers, Christian M. Mcnamara, Andrew Metrick Jan 2020

Basel Iii E: Synthetic Financing By Prime Brokers, Christian M. Mcnamara, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Hedge funds rely on “prime brokerage” units within banks to provide leverage. With the enhanced capital requirements and new liquidity standards introduced by Basel III driving up the cost to banks of engaging in such financing, prime brokers have begun to offer an alternative means of providing hedge fund clients with leveraged exposure to securities. Known as synthetic financing, this alternative requires the prime broker to enter into derivatives contracts with the clients. Under the Basel III framework, the ability of banks to hedge and net such derivative positions results in capital and liquidity costs for synthetic financing that are …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a global financial service provider, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by banking regulatory agencies in different countries. Bruno Iksil, the derivatives trader primarily responsible for the $6 billion trading loss in 2012, was based in JPM’s London office. This office was regulated both by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) of the United States (US) and by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which served as the sole regulator of all financial services in the United Kingdom (UK). Banking regulators in the US and the UK have entered into agreements with one another to define basic parameters …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2013, the primary United States financial regulatory agencies jointly adopted final rules to implement Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which is often referred to as the “Volcker Rule”. Section 619 prohibits banks from engaging in activities considered to be particularly risky, including proprietary trading and owning hedge funds or private equity funds. Banking regulators designed the final rule against proprietary trading in part to prevent losses like the $6 billion London Whale loss that took place in 2012 at JPMorgan Chase. Given the controversial nature of the Volcker Rule, it is …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

On April 13, 2012, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein took part in a conference call to discuss the bank’s first quarter 2012 earnings. Coming just a week after media reports first questioned the risks taken by JPM derivatives trader Bruno Iksil, Braunstein made a series of assertions about the trades. On May 10, JPM finalized its first quarter financial results, which included some disclosures regarding Iksil’s trading that were substantially different from Braunstein’s statements of April 13. At issue is whether the regulatory filings on April 13 and May 10, as well as verbal comments by Braunstein …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a diversified financial service provider and the largest United States bank holding company, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by multiple regulatory agencies. JPM’s commercial bank subsidiaries hold a national charter and therefore are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Since the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) invested the surplus deposits of JPM’s commercial bank units, the OCC was also CIO’s primary regulator. During the critical period from late January through March 2012, when CIO traders undertook the failed derivatives strategy that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion, JPM did not provide the OCC with …