The SEC just announced that Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to settle charges of defrauding investors through sales of collateralized debt obligations. Not surprisingly, Goldman’s stock surged on the announcement. Can you believe this? What is more, the firm’s corporate and institutional clients have not abandoned it as the sordid findings of [...]
Imagine you are stranded on a desert island. For fresh water there are three natural springs, but it is possible one or more have been poisoned. To minimize your risk, what is your optimal strategy for drinking from the springs? You might: select one of the three springs at random and drink exclusively from it, [...]
This week’s BusinessWeek reports on changes in risk management within financial institutions in the wake of the subprime meltdown and Societe Generale rogue trader fiasco. Merrill’s new CEO, John Thaine, has created two new high-level risk manager positions reporting directly to him—and he is going to meet with them weekly. Morgan Stanley has appointed a [...]
Richard Bookstaber knows his way around Wall Street. Thirty years ago, he transitioned from academia to practice. He has worked in trading and risk management since. Along the way, he wrote one of the best introductions to options trading ever published. In this new book, he takes on multiple tasks. First and foremost, he offers [...]
Peter Bernstein is an elder statesman of finance. He served time in the rough-and-tumble world of portfolio management. He was the first editor of the Journal of Portfolio Management, and his diverse writings have made him somewhat the chronicler of twentieth century finance. He is best known for his book Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins [...]
In his new book Accidental Investment Banker, Jonathan Knee introduces us to the phrase IBG YBG, which means “I’ll be gone. You’ll be gone.” This might be whispered between investment bankers when an inconvenient fact comes to light during due diligence on a company they are about to float. “Don’t sweat it” is the implication. [...]
So often, procedures read like some sort of legal disclaimer. Write them as you would a best-selling cookbook. They should not tell people what they can and can’t do. They should tell people how to do things.
This week, Jeff Skilling received a well-deserved sentence of 24 years for his creativity at Enron. I wouldn’t take the sentence too seriously. Remember that Mike Milken—the Junk Bond King of the 1980s—was sentenced to ten years. After two years, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, petitioned for early release, received early release, and then [...]
Not long ago, I was sitting on a trading floor, helping a trader figure out the intricacies of volatility surfaces. The firm’s head of risk management strolled by, and the trader grunted an expletive under his breath. I was taken aback by the trader’s vehemence. Not only did he dislike the head of risk management, [...]
Ask a practitioner of the origins of financial risk management, and he might say it emerged in response to financial blow-ups of the early 1990s. Or he might say it emerged out of efforts by the Basel Committee to standardize bank capital requirements globally. Or he might say it emerged from efforts by banks to [...]