Financial Crisis Report (Relatório do Senado Americano)

Vejamos só por curiosidade os títulos (em língua original) dos fundamentos casuísticos do Relatório sobre a Crise Financeira da Comissão do Senado Americano.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1. High Risk Lending:
   Case Study of Washington Mutual Bank
2. Regulatory Failure:
   Case Study of the Office of Thrift Supervision
3. Inflated Credit Ratings:
   Case Study of Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s
4. Investment Bank Abuses:
   Case Study of Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank

 

• Vale a pena também ler, com alguma atenção, o estudo de caso relativo ao Deutsche Bank: pode ajudar a perceber algo do que se passa ne Europa, tendo em conta a relevância desse banco alemão na determinação da dívida soberana dos Estados europeus:

"The Deutsche Bank case study describes how the bank’s top global CDO trader, Greg Lippmann, repeatedly warned and advised his Deutsche Bank colleagues and some of his clients seeking to buy short positions about the poor quality of the RMBS securities underlying many CDOs. He described some of those securities as “crap” and “pigs,” and predicted the assets and the CDO securities would lose value. At one point, Mr. Lippmann was asked to buy a specific CDO security and responded that it “rarely trades,” but he “would take it and try to dupe someone” into buying it. He also at times referred to the industry’s ongoing CDO marketing efforts as a “CDO machine” or “ponzi scheme.” Deutsche Bank’s senior management disagreed with his negative views, and used the bank’s own funds to make large proprietary investments in mortgage related securities that, in 2007, had a notional or face value of $128 billion and a market value of more than $25 billion. Despite its positive view of the housing market, the bank allowed Mr. Lippmann to develop a large proprietary short position for the bank in the RMBS market, which from 2005 to 2007, totaled $5 billion. The bank cashed in the short position from 2007 to 2008, generating a profit of $1.5 billion, which Mr. Lippmann claims is more money on a single position than any other trade had ever made for Deutsche Bank in its history. Despite that gain, due to its large long holdings, Deutsche Bank lost nearly $4.5 billion from its mortgage related proprietary investments.
 
The Subcommittee also examined a $1.1 billion CDO underwritten by Deutsche Bank known as Gemstone CDO VII Ltd. (Gemstone 7), which issued securities in March 2007. It was one of 47 CDOs totaling $32 billion that Deutsche Bank underwrote from 2004 to 2008.
 
Deutsche Bank made $4.7 million in fees from Gemstone 7, while the collateral manager, a hedge fund called HBK Capital Management, was slated to receive $3.3 million. Gemstone 7 concentrated risk by including within a single financial instrument 115 RMBS securities whose financial success depended upon thousands of high risk, poor quality subprime loans. Many of those RMBS securities carried BBB, BBB-, or even BB credit ratings, making them among the highest risk RMBS securities sold to the public. Nearly a third of the RMBS securities contained subprime loans originated by Fremont, Long Beach, and New Century, lenders well known within the industry for issuing poor quality loans. Deutsche Bank also sold securities directly from its own inventory to the CDO.

Deutsche Bank’s CDO trading desk knew that many of these RMBS securities were likely to lose value, but did not object to their inclusion in Gemstone 7, even securities which Mr. Lippmann was calling “crap” or “pigs.” Despite the poor quality of the underlying assets, Gemstone’s top three tranches received AAA ratings. Deutsche Bank ultimately sold about $700 million in Gemstone securities, without disclosing to potential investors that its global head trader of CDOs had extremely negative views of a third of the assets in the CDO or that the bank’s internal valuations showed that the assets had lost over $19 million in value since their purchase. Within months of being issued, the Gemstone 7 securities lost value; by November 2007, they began undergoing credit rating downgrades; and by July 2008, they became nearly worthless.

Both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank underwrote securities using loans from subprime lenders known for issuing high risk, poor quality mortgages, and sold risky securities to investors across the United States and around the world. They also enabled the lenders to acquire new funds to originate still more high risk, poor quality loans. Both sold CDO securities without full disclosure of the negative views of some of their employees regarding the underlying assets and, in the case of Goldman, without full disclosure that it was shorting the very CDO securities it was marketing, raising questions about whether Goldman complied with its obligations to issue suitable investment recommendations and disclose material adverse interests.

The case studies also illustrate how these two investment banks continued to market new CDOs in 2007, even as U.S. mortgage delinquencies intensified, RMBS securities lost value, the U.S. mortgage market as a whole deteriorated, and investors lost confidence. Both kept producing and selling high risk, poor quality structured finance products in a negative market, in part because stopping the “CDO machine” would have meant less income for structured finance units, smaller executive bonuses, and even the disappearance of CDO desks and personnel, which is what finally happened. The two case studies also illustrate how certain complex structured finance products, such as synthetic CDOs and naked credit default swaps, amplified market risk by allowing investors with no ownership interest in the reference obligations to place unlimited side bets on their performance.

Finally, the two case studies demonstrate how proprietary trading led to dramatic losses in the case of Deutsche Bank and undisclosed conflicts of interest in the case of Goldman Sachs."

NB: A saliência de algumas afirmações é da minha exclusiva responsabilidade; destina-se a orientar o leitor na busca de informação rápida. O nosso mundo é o do TGV...