According to the math PhD’s hired by the investment banks an…
According to the math PhD’s hired by the investment banks and credit rating agencies, huge amounts of risk disappeared when risky subprime loans were pooled together in a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). The model showed that although some subprime loans would default at the same time, not all of them would default at the same time with the chances of 2/3 of the subprime loans defaulting at the same time being highly improbable, allowing the CDO to be split into two tranches, a safer AAA rated 2/3 piece and a risky 1/3 piece, which would bear the first losses if and when loans in the pool defaulted. (a) Was this an innocent mistake, which surprised the banks, rating agencies, and investors or was it an intentional ruse, which generated phantom profits and bonuses as it sowed the seeds of financial destruction? Why or why not? (b) Do U think the events would have unfolded differently if the financial institutions that made these subprime loans, and the Wall Street IB’s that pooled/securitized them and sold them to their clients, had been required to keep them in their portfolio? Why or why not?