It is now widely recognized that an uncontrolled "derivatives revolution" triggered one of the most spectacular worst-case scenarios of modern times. This book - the most cogent legal analysis of the subject yet to appear in any language - lays bare the core role played by the failure to adequately regulate derivatives in the financial crisis of recent years. The author's insistence that derivatives must be viewed not as profit-seeking investments but as risk management tools - and his well-grounded prescriptions to ensure that they are regulated in that way - sheds clear light on the best way for companies, financial institutions, and hedge funds to move forward in their use of these useful but highly hazardous instruments. This book clearly shows how such elements as the following fit into the legal analysis of derivatives, and how proper regulation will preserve their usefulness and economic value: ; derivatives allow for the most efficient and cost-effective risk fractioning, hence risk taking, techniques ever conceived; derivatives allow for all measurable and identifiable risks that may exist in modern finance; the ability to isolate risks and insure against risk exposures is the key to the very survival of modern financial markets; risk buyers effectively take on financial exposure to various types of risk while hedgers unload unwanted exposures; derivatives allow domestic investors to acquire exposure to foreign markets without the necessity of dealing with foreign laws, foreign investments, currency exchange, or foreign fiscal regimes; derivatives increase social welfare by making it easier and less expensive to carry out many types of financial transactions; derivatives allow governments to insulate, manage, hedge or concentrate risks deriving from financial, meteorological, and even geopolitical exposure; and derivatives allow radical changes to financial and risk structure to be performed silently and rapidly. To the question: how do we ensure that a company trading derivatives is regulated effectively? this work offers a clear and convincing answer. The author's detailed recommendations for regulatory and corporate governance measures are designed to prevent excessive risk taking, the emergence of rogue traders, and ultimately the emergence of another systemic disturbance caused by chains of derivatives-related losses.

Dieses Buch ist die sorgfältig umgeschriebene und redigierte Bearbeitung von Reden und Aufsätzen des Nobelpreisträgers Merton Miller, die seine persönlichen Einschätzungen des Marktes widerspiegeln. Gut verständlich wird die Problematik der Derivative sowie wichtige Themen der modernen Finanzwelt - jedoch ohne mathematische Formeln - erörtert. (10/97)

A compelling narrative on what went wrong with our financial system—and who’s to blame. From an award-winning journalist who has been covering the industry for more than a decade, The Devil’s Derivatives charts the untold story of modern financial innovation—how investment banks invented new financial products, how investors across the world were wooed into buying them, how regulators were seduced by the political rewards of easy credit, and how speculators made a killing from the near-meltdown of the financial system. Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers worldwide created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators. Fundamental to this saga is how “the people who hated to lose” were persuaded to accept risk by “the people who loved to win.” Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines? How did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum—ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the giants of finance? Provocative and intriguing, The Devil’s Derivatives sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.

This book is a blueprint for coping the revolution, it gives a new vision of finacial markets outlined clearly and succinctly in print for the first time.

Fully revised and updated Here is the only comprehensive source that explains the various instruments in the market, their economic value, how to document trades, and more. This new edition includes enhanced treatment of U.S. and worldwide regulatory issues, and new product structures. "If you want to know more about credit derivatives--and these days an increasing number of people do--then you should read this book." --Merton H. Miller, winner, Nobel Prize in Economics, 1990 "Tavakoli brings extraordinary insight and clarity to this fascinating financial evolution . . ."--Carl V. Schuman, Manager, Credit Derivatives, West LB New York Janet M. Tavakoli (Chicago, IL) is Vice President of the Chicago branch of Bank of America, where she directs the company's overall marketing of global derivatives and manages its CreditMetrics initiative.