Setting the Background
During the turn of the 21st century, things were looking extremely bleak for the U.S. economy. The dot-com bubble left major technology companies – and their employees, in complete financial shambles. This stock market crash caused the loss of over $5 trillion in the market value of various companies from 2000-2002. In addition, the events of September 11th accelerated this recession. Although the $40 billion insurance loss was one of the largest insured events, it didn’t even compare to the subsequent events that occurred. Most major U.S. securities exchanges closed down (even the London Stock Exchange and various others worldwide), airline and aviation suffered increased costs due to grounded flights, and massive losses were taken in the tourism industry that employed 280,000 people in New York alone. Overall losses amounted in the hundreds of billions.
Subprime meltdown
In response to these catastrophic events, the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates dramatically, with the fed funds rate dropping down to 1% in 2003. As lower interest rates continued to become the norm, the real estate begins to look much more attractive as many home buyers were able to purchase homes that offered low introductory rates and minimal initial costs. The vast majority of these buyers were betting that they could refinance their mortgages to lower rates due to price appreciation. However, home prices soon stopped increasing at breakneck speeds. As prices of homes began to decline in early 2006, many homeowners simply could not refinance to lower rates. As interest rates slowly rose, monthly payments increased on adjustable rate mortgages. Many homeowners discovered that they could not afford these higher payments, and simply had to default on their loans.
Mortgage Backed Securities
So how did these events affect the investment banking industry, and ultimately Campbell and Bailyn’s operations? Prior to the crisis, there was a new financial product being spun on Wall Street – mortgage backed securities. The concept and flow of these asset-backed securities was fairly simple:
1) An originator (who issues the mortgages) groups the cash flows from the mortgages into a large pool. There can be hundreds of individual mortgages within this pool.
2) The originator sells this bundle to an investment bank.
3) The investment bank requests that individual tranches of this pool get analyzed by a reputable credit agency (Moody’s, FitchRatings) and then assigned a risk level.
4) The investment bank sells these individual tranches for varying prices to institutional or retail investors depending on the riskiness of the debt.
The Savings and Loans Crisis of the 1980’s and early 90’s created the greatest banking collapse since the Great Depression in 1929. Over half the S & L’s failed, along with the FSLIC fund that was created to insure their deposits.
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The financial crisis of 2007–2008 is considered by many economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The crisis led to a series of events including: the 2008–2012 global recessions and the European sovereign-debt crisis. The reasons of this financial crisis are argued by economists. The performance of the Federal Reserve becomes a focal point in this argument.
The joint financial failures of the companies sparked a crash in the stock market. This served as a catalyst for a surge of bank failures because many New York banks were big investors in the Stock Market. The financial disaster began in New York and soon permeated its way throughout the country. Over a six-month period, over 8,000 businesses, 156 railroads, 400 banks failed, and 20% of Americans were unemployed By July of 1893, there was massive unemployment in factories and extensive wage cuts.... ... middle of paper ... ...currency.
Many people today would consider the 2008, United States financial crisis a simple “malfunction” or “mistake”, but it was nothing close to that. Contrary to what many believe, renowned economists and financial advisors regarded the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to be the most devastating crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. To make matters worse, the decline in the economy expanded nationwide, resulting in the recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brue). David Einhorn, CEO of GreenHorn Capital, even goes as far as to say "What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go back to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn't an accident. We didn't get unlucky. The crisis came because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas". The 2007 financial crisis was composed of the fall of many major financial institutions, an unknown increase in mortgage loan defaults, and the derived freezing up of credit availability (Brue). It was the result from risky mortgage loans and falling estate values (Brue) . Additionally, the financial crisis of 2007 was the result of underestimation of risk by faulty insurance securities made to protect holders of mortgage-back securities from risk of default and holders of mortgage-backed securities (Brue). Even to present day, America stills suffers from the aftermaths of the financial crisis.
In the midst of the current economic downturn, dubbed the “Great Recession”, it is natural to look for one, singular entity or person to blame. Managers of large banks, professional investors and federal regulators have all been named as potential creators of the recession, with varying degrees of guilt. No matter who is to blame, the fallout from the mistakes that were made that led to the current crisis is clear. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current unemployment rate is 9.7%, with 9.3 million Americans out of work (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Compared to a normal economic rate of two or three percent, it is clear that the decisions of one group of people have had a profound affect on the lives of millions of Americans. The real blame for this crisis rests on the heads of the managers that attempted to play the financial system through securitization, and forced the American government to “bail out” their companies with taxpayer money. These managers, specifically the managers of AIG and Citigroup, should be subject to extreme pay caps for the length of time that the American taxpayer holds majority holdings in their companies, as a punitive punishment for causing the Great Recession.
When the attacks of September 11th occurred, the federal government had to completely close down some airports in the US. This created a negative effect on the industry as it was a shock to their entire organization. Planes in the US and around the world were canceled due to this attack as well. Planes were not flying anywhere, as the plan was to prevent any other attack. Each plane that was cancelled had to be paid by the airline company directly. According to the International Air Transport Association there was a drastic change in the amount of flights between the date before and after the event. Around 37,600 less flights flew the day after the attack had occurred. The number of flights dramatically decreased in those three days; in addition every...
The events that unfolded on September 11th and the days that followed also profoundly effected the stock market. It is the purpose of this paper is to examine what happened to both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ after September 11th and how it is similar to events such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Gulf War in terms of how the stock market experienced a blow and bounced back after a while.
There is perhaps no other political issue in our contemporary society that is more pertinent, pervasive, and encompassing than a nation’s economy. From the first coins used in Greece and the Asia Minor in the 7th century BCE, to the earliest uses of paper money, history has proven time and time again that the control of a region’s economy is absolutely crucial to maintaining social stability and prosperity. Yet, for over a century scholars have continued to speculate why the United States, one of the world’s strongest and most influential countries, has one of the most unstable economies. Although the causes of this economic instability can be attributed to multiple factors, nearly all economists agree that they have a common ancestor: the Federal Reserve Bank – the official central bank of the United States. Throughout the course of this paper, I will attempt to determine whether or not there is a causal relationship between the Federal Reserve Bank’s monetary policies and the decline of the U.S. economy. I will do this through a brief analysis of the history and role of this institution, in addition to the central banking system in general. In turn, I will argue that the reckless and intentional manipulation of the economy by the Federal Reserve Bank, through inflation and the abolishment of the gold standard, has led to the current economic crisis in the United States.
The Group is exposed to a various financial risk which mainly includes liquidity risk, market risk, credit risk and cash flow risk. BDEV manages these risk by maintaining
A new financial tool known as a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) became prevalent among large investment banks and other large institutions. CDOs lump various types of debt - from the very safe to the very risky - into one bundle. The various types of debt are known as tranches. Many large investors holding mortgage-backed securities created CDOs, which included tranches filled with subprime loans. (For more on this concept, check out our Subprime Mortgage Meltdown special feature.)
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
In late 2005, the housing bubble burst, and housing began to decline in price. People who refinanced, particularly those who financed with variable interest rates, suddenly found their homes were valued at much less. The housing market became flooded with homes for sale, because the homeowners with variable rates and interest only loans could not continue to make their payments. Greenspan: The rise in the number of homes for sale caused further lowering of home values. Keep in mind that the main reason for the mortgage crisis is the high number of defaulted home loans, which triggered foreclosures and sell-offs.
...el such as: purpose of the loan, maturity of the security pledged, the history of the client with the company and the unique characteristics that the bank’s customers might have.
Although there were numerous factors that contributed to the recent financial crisis, derivatives like mortgage backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) had a strong impact on the events that transpired. In the MBS market, the cash flows from a mortgage is broken up into different parts and then sent to whoever can best handle the different risks at the best price. These parts are then repackaged into new financial instruments which are sold to investors (Rickards, 2012). The new portfolios were used to back collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) which were divided into tranches and sold to investors (Hull, 2011). These portfolios were guaranteed by the government national mortgage association (GNMA) which allowed banks to lend money without worrying about borrowers defaulting on their loans.