Books about Default from Amazon.com

From Countrywide’s former Senior VP of Marketing, the first engrossing inside look at Countrywide Home Loans, how the mortgage crisis started—and where it may end.

In July 2004, Adam Michaelson entered “The Vault”—an underground bunker at Countrywide headquarters—for a meeting about a new loan product that would allow borrowers to pay less than their minimum monthly payment. After the “finance jocks” proudly made their case, Michaelson asked one question: “Are you nuts?” Countrywide’s decision-makers believed these new exotic loans were “worth the risk.” The booming housing market would only get bigger, with ever-increasing home values supporting homeowners in a never-ending cycle of borrowing against the virtual value of their homes and refinancing later. They were dead wrong.

With both an insider’s knowledge and thorough reporting on the ripple effects on American families and the economy, this fascinating, witty, and wide-ranging book not only examines the morality of a career spent marketing mirages and the market forces that destroyed a company, but addresses the question that everyone is asking: can corporations serve the public good and profit at the same time? Most importantly, it offers creative thinking on how to prevent such a meltdown from ever happening again..
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The growth of the credit derviatives market has produced a liquid market in credit default swaps across the credit curve, and this liquidity has led many investors to access both the credit derivative and cash bond markets to meet their investment requirements.

This book investigates the close relationship between the synthetic and cash markets in credit, which manifests itself in the credit default swap basis. Choudhry covers the factors that drive the basis, implications for market participants, the CDS index basis, and trading the basis.

Credit market investors and traders as well as anyone with an interest in the global debt markets will find this insightful and rewarding.

THIS BOOK QUALIFIES FOR 7 PD CREDITS UNDER THE GUIDELINES OF THE CFA INSTITUTE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The estimation and validation of the Basel II risk parameters PD (default probability), LGD (loss given default), and EAD (exposure at default) is an important problem in banking practice. These parameters are used on the one hand as inputs to credit portfolio models, on the other to compute regulatory capital according to the new Basel rules. The book covers the state-of-the-art in designing and validating rating systems and default probability estimations. Furthermore, it presents techniques to estimate LGD and EAD. A chapter on stress testing of the Basel II risk parameters concludes the monograph.

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Price: $63.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Fully revised and updated
Here is the only comprehensive source that explains the various instruments in the market, their economic value, how to document trades, and more. This new edition includes enhanced treatment of U.S. and worldwide regulatory issues, and new product structures.
"If you want to know more about credit derivatives--and these days an increasing number of people do--then you should read this book."
--Merton H. Miller, winner, Nobel Prize in Economics, 1990
"Tavakoli brings extraordinary insight and clarity to this fascinating financial evolution . . ."--Carl V. Schuman, Manager, Credit Derivatives, West LB New York
Janet M. Tavakoli (Chicago, IL) is Vice President of the Chicago branch of Bank of America, where she directs the company's overall marketing of global derivatives and manages its CreditMetrics initiative..
Price: $45.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Credit-default swaps (CDSs) are rapidly replacing bonds as the investment of choice for institutional investors. This work explains this investment option and why the CDS market has exploded from nothing to $28.8 trillion over the past seven years..
Price: $41.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007.

The debt crises in emerging market countries over the past decade have given rise to renewed debate about crisis prevention and resolution In Debt Defaults and Lessons from a Decade of Crises, Federico Sturzenegger and Jeromin Zettelmeyer examine the facts, the economic theory, and the policy implications of sovereign debt crises. They present detailed case histories of the default and debt crises in seven emerging market countries between 1998 and 2005: Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Ecuador, Argentina, Moldova, and Uruguay. These accounts are framed with a comprehensive overview of the history, economics, and legal issues involved and a discussion from both domestic and international perspectives of the policy lessons that can be derived from these experiences.

Sturzenegger and Zettelmeyer examine how each crisis developed, what the subsequent restructuring encompassed, and how investors and the defaulting country fared. They discuss the new theoretical thinking on sovereign debt and the ultimate costs entailed, for both debtor countries and private creditors. The policy debate is considered first from the perspective of policymakers in emerging market countries and then in terms of international financial architecture. The authors' surveys of legal and economic issues associated with debt crises, and of the crises themselves, are the most comprehensive to be found in the literature on sovereign debt and default, and their theoretical analysis is detailed and nuanced. The book will be a valuable resource for investors as well as for scholars and policymakers..
Price: $25.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Most new law is statutory law; that is, law enacted by legislators An important question, therefore, is how should this law be interpreted by courts and agencies, especially when the text of a statute is not entirely clear. There is a great deal of scholarly literature on the rules and legal materials courts should use in interpreting statutes. This book takes a fresh approach by focusing instead on what judges should do once the legal materials fail to resolve the interpretive question. It challenges the common assumption that in such cases judges should exercise interstitial lawmaking power. Instead, it argues that--wherever one believes the interpretive inquiry has failed to resolve the statutory meaning--judges can and should use statutory default rules that are designed to maximize the satisfaction of enactable political preferences; that is, the political preferences of the polity that are shared among enough elected officials that they could and would be enacted into law if the issue were on the legislative agenda.

These default rules explain many recent high-profile cases, including the Guantánamo detainees case, the sentencing guidelines case, the decision denying the FDA authority to regulate cigarettes, and the case that refused to allow the attorney general to criminalize drugs used in physician-assisted suicide.

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Price: $30.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For most of our contemporaries, to speak of modernity is to think immediately of liberty, equality, and democracy—and to assume that all is well. But things are not so simple. For while the culture of modernity has spread gradually throughout the West for roughly two hundred years, it accelerated in the 1960s in such a way as to undergo a subtle transformation. Hence the paradox of the world we live in: by all appearances the "rights of man" have emerged triumphant, yet at the same time they have been emptied of substance because of their radicalization. Modern man thus finds himself isolated and ensnared. By right, his autonomy should strengthen him; but in fact, he has been dispossessed of himself. The great artifice of our time is to give conformism the mask of liberty.

Philippe Bénéton, a prominent French religious conservative, has long meditated on Tocqueville, and Equality by Default is Tocquevillian in that it does not offer a partisan polemic, but rather paints a picture of contemporary life—a picture that is also a guide for discernment for those who have a difficult time "seeing" contemporary liberalism for what it is. Artfully translated by Ralph Hancock, Equality by Default offers a unique and strikingly insightful account of the late-modern mind..
Price: $11.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Structured Credit Handbook is a comprehensive introduction to all types of credit-linked financial instruments. This book provides state-of-the-art primers on single tranche collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), credit derivatives (such as credit default swaps and swaptions), and iBoxx indexes. Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, The Structured Credit Handbook covers all aspects of the synthetic arbitrage CDO market, including new instruments such as CDO2. Readers will also gain a firm understanding of the investment rationale, risks, and rewards associated with CDO investments through this valuable resource.

The exploding use of credit derivatives and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) has transformed the world of credit, creating an $18 trillion market almost overnight and resulting in innumerable investment and career opportunities globally. The Structured Credit Handbook provides the reader with a comprehensive and clear roadmap to today's new credit landscape. The full spectrum of structured credit products, from single-name CDS to CDOs, is explained in a simple, clear fashion that is free from the financial jargon and mathematical complexity which characterize many other derivative texts. The handbook begins with an in-depth explanation of the building blocks of the structured credit markets, single-name default swaps and indexes, and it culminates with complex products such as credit options, synthetic tranches, CDOs based on bank loans and asset-backed securities, and CDO-squareds.

Written by experienced practitioners who have participated in this market since its infancy, each of the thirteen chapters introduces and analyzes a new product and explains its practical applications. A rich set of real-life case studies illustrate the application of each product in a concrete market setting. The book may be used in a semester-long course on structured credit as part of a business or finance curriculum. Whether you are a market professional, a university student or faculty member, or simply a financially savvy layperson, look no further for an up-to-date and thorough introduction to this rapidly growing and exciting field.

Dr. Arvind Rajan, Managing Director, Citigroup Global Markets, is engaged in proprietary trading of Structured Credit products, and until recently, was global head of Structured Credit Research and Strategy at Citigroup. Glen McDermott (New York, NY) is Director of Fixed Income Sales and the former head of CDO Research at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Ratul Roy is head of CDO Strategy for Citigroup Global Markets and has spent the prior nine years in structuring or analyzing CDOs and other structured credit products..
Price: $51.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]