Macro 5 Flashcards
When were the seeds of financial crisis planted? and why?
1970s onwards, with many financial innovation
What were the type of financial innovations?
New types of securities
New ways to borrow short term
New ways to insure against falling asset values
(similar to deposit insurance)
Increased importance of non-bank financial institution (NBFI)
What is securitisation? What is the process like?
turning loans into debt securities
- Bank makes mortgage loans, with home as colalteral
- Bank bundles the mortgages into a mortgage- backed security (MBS). Owner of MBS gets regular interest payments from the mortgages
- Bank sells the MBS to another financial institution. BANK CAN WRITE OFF MORTGAGE FROM BALANCE SHEET. WHOEVER OWNS SECURITES ENTILTED TO REPAYMENT OF LOANS
What is considered long term in securitisation?
20-30 years
What is the process of slicing and dicing? What is the purpose behidn each step?
- Financial institution buys many different MBS (mixture of high risk subprime and low risk prime)
2 .Chops up each MBS into slices
- Combines slices from various MBS to form Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs). Security created that pays high interest and has low risk due to diversification
- Sell CDOs to other banks( other bank get regular interest payment from MBS slices)
How to create CDO squared?
do another round of slicing and dicing
What is the new way of borrowing short term?
Repurchase Agreement(repo)
other party is reverse repo
When will the repos act as collateral?
If the seller of the CDO defaults, then the buyer of the CDO keeps security
CDOLenders prefer liquid and safe assets as collateral in repos
Short term govt securities are considered very good collateral
What are credit default swaps?
Form of insurance against seller of CDO default
will top up remaining amount
What are shadow banks?
NBFIs that take on short term liabilities (such as repos) to purchase long term assets (such as MBS’s, CDOs)
highly leveraged
What were the primary function of shadow banks?
Supposed to help companies to arrange ipo
Advice on financial dealing
How were shadow banks and traditional banks similar?
- Assets are long term
- Liabilities are short term
- Highly leveraged
How were they shadow banks different from traiditonal banks?
- Insurance is not provided by government
- Lightly or not regulated
- Has no lender of last resort
What caused the financial crisis ?
- US nationwide housing market downturn
- rising mortgage default
- prices of MBS’s, CDO fell drastically
- Lenders, fearing that borrowers are insolvent, became less willing to enter into repos, and to accept these securities as collateral
- banks and NBFI’s tried to deleverage i.e. sell assets to pay off liabilities (BUT ALL AT SAME TIME)
What is deleveraging ?When is deleveraging good and bad? Why?
deleveraging: sell assets to pay off liabilities
- works when few firms do it
- but bad when all sell at same time, cause price of MBS and CDO to fall further, closer to insolvency ( similar to bank run)
What is the positive feedback loop for mortgage default rise?
- Mortgage default rise
- Price of MBS fall
- Price of CDO fall
- Banks and NBFI see eqwuity fall
- Lenders fear that borrowers may be insolvent
- Repo market stalls, banks and NBFIs can’t borrow
- Banks and NBFIs sell MBS, CDOs
- Go back to step 2/ step 3