Credit-derivatives

Outdated is the only word that comes to my mind when thinking about this book. It has been edited by a finance professor who is painfully slow at solving simple mathematical equations, and I had the misfortune of having him as an instructor in Advanced Investment Analysis class. I later dropped the class, after I couldn't take any more.

Surprisingly, the content of the book is not so bad, except that the authors/editors/compilers have left out the analytical part, which is very essential to understanding derivative securities. Just learning about the structures of the instruments doesn't give a reader an ability to apply them to real-life situations. Since it is a handbook, it must carry all aspects of the subject so that the readers can use them in every possible way of reference.

Standing alone, the book is fairly decent, and I would have given it more stars, had it not been for the better alternatives available on the market. This book, as it stands now, should be skipped. If you just want to gain the peripheral knowledge on credit derivatives, log onto the internet, and search for documents. There is tonnes of information on derivative securities and their working. In fact, you might be able to find more relevant material on the web for free than this book offers you.

As an alternative, you may want to look into:

*Credit Derivatives, by Janet Tavakoli.
*Credit Derivatives, by Satyajit Das. THIS IS THE BEST BOOK AVAILABLE, AND COVERS ANALYTICAL DETAILS ADEQUATELY.

This is another book in the Frank Fabozzi vein, being a compendium of articles written by practitioners in the field and loosely strung together by the editors. As a very basic introduction, it is not bad - there are discussions of the rationale for using credit derivatives, a cursory introduction to pricing and modelling, and very general discussions of issues relating to accounting, documentation, taxes, etc. The best chapter is "Credit Derivatives Pricing Dictionary," by Hardy M. Hodges, which provides definitions of some of the most important concepts and would stand quite well on its own. However, if you expect something more than generalities, you will be disappointed. There is very little by way of practical advice on structuring, modelling or other "nuts and bolt' issues. This book will teach you enough to get past the HR department, but if you want to get on the trading desk you had better look elsewhere!

Commercial bankers, investment bankers, financial lawyers, finance professors, and (at least) one accountant who were in on the creation of credit derivatives during the mid-1990s author chapters that are non-mathematical. (Well, I guess Harvard Business School Professor Sanjiv Das's credit derivatives pricing chapter is kind of mathematical.) Each chapter author is expert in the aspect of credit derivatives about which they write. Every commercial banker in the world should read up on this subject.

The Definitive 4-in-1 Reference Guide to Alternative Assets Many books cover individual alternative asset classes, but none offers a comprehensive examination of the four major classes as presented in the Handbook of Alternative Assets. This complete handbook merges data and strategies scattered in numerous volumes into one handy guide for the serious investor. The four major classes discussed are: Hedge funds Commodity and managed futures Private equity Credit derivatives Organized by sections-one for each alternative asset class-the Handbook of Alternative Assets demonstrates the benefits and risks of each alternative asset and reveals how these asset classes can be incorporated into a diversified portfolio. Through expert advice, the Handbook of Alternative Assets details each of four major alternative asset classes and breaks down their quantitative statistical value as well. With this comprehensive handbook on your desk, you'll begin to use alternative asset classes to both hedge and expand any portfolio.
The Handbook of Alternative Assets discusses and describes four types of alternative assets: hedge funds, private equity, credit derivatives and commodity futures.

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I used this book for my preparations towards CAIA Level 1 exam. And I am impressed. Mr. Anson is an authority and this is truely a great book for Alternative Investment aspirants.

If you want to have a very solid grasp of any of the following alternative investment approaches then this is the book you should turn to -

Hedge funds
Commodity and managed futures
Private equity (5 catagories)
....Venture Capital
....LBOs
....Mezzannine Financing
....Distressed Debt

....CrossOver/Interval/PIPE and PEPE funds
Credit derivatives
Corporate Governance

Mr. Anson helps you build strong fundamentals. Actually he clearly explains what constitutes Alternative Assets(Aha !!!) as against fundamental and/or capital assets and what is meant by alternative investment strategies.

This is followed by a rigorous analysis of the topics listed above in that order.

I particularly enjoyed his coverage of Hedge Funds. He explains each of the 10 Hedge Fund strategies in a systematic fashion. From a variety of angles including Market(S&P500), Risk, Regulatory, Due Diligence/Operational/Administrative perspective.

The coverage of Commodity Derivatives is also superb. Although confined to 4 chapters this coverage is sufficient to gain an intermediate level insight into the Commodities.

The coverage for Private Equity is less comprehensive(but good) compared to it's actual scope in real world. I particularly expected a more rigorous coverage for LBOs.

Although I did not touch credit derivatives and CorpGov I could tell you for sure that these topics must have been covered well.
As I read 19 out of 22 chapters.

To put it in a nutshell - This is a very good book for Hedge fund aspirants and prospective Alternative investment professionals.

For more info about CAIA please visit www.caia.org.

This book is not a good tome for risk managers, for marketers, or for quantitative professionals. It's as if Nelken read some articles and cobbled up this book. Waste of time and money.

This book will give risk managers something to think about when they start to implement credit derivatives as part of the strategy.

You can understand the concept of credit derivatives

This book is a great collection of papers written on the models that have evolved in the theory of credit risk inherent in derivatives. It compiles a balanced mix of introductory and more advanced papers that employ the advanced mathematical techniques used in fixed income analytics. This book is a must for those who are serious about pricing, analyzing and managing derivatives, especially fixed income derivatives.

This book strings together a lot of chapters contributed by other authors and suffers from the multiple-author syndrome. It's like the book Chase put out years ago. Lots of authors but not saying much new. In at least one instance, an author seems to have "borrowed heavily" from other better-known authors. I read the reviews below and it does seem that while Lehman and BofA are represented, they aren't represented by their top people. A couple of these chapters have been previously published. It is particularly annoying to open the book and find you've already read the material when it was first released by an I-bank as a research piece.

This is yet another compiled work priced well beyond intrinsic value offered by Risk Books. Several contributors are people who have been on the fringes of the industry and have a poor understanding of this subject (and who can't write!). Even Goldman lends a bad science piece on the value of restructuring. The best researchers in the market who work at Lehman and Bank of America aren't even represented here. They wisely avoided being lumped in with this mess. You'll struggle to recognize the names of the other contributors, and the lack of expertise shows through in the articles.

Greg Gupton is good as always, but don't you wish he'd just write his own book and shed himself of this dead weight? I'd happily buy that one instead of getting ripped off once again with yet another sub standard compilation of bad articles.

It's incomprehensible that this book doesn't deal with the current market issues such as the new ISDA 2003 language and core issues in CDS applications. The article on Basel doesn't address the core issues posed by Basel II. As for pricing, forget it. Risk couldn't be bothered to research this subject and recruit people who know what they are doing.

This is a grea resource on credit derivatives. Whilst Tavakoli is focused mainly on applications and documentation and Schonbucher is dedicated to pricing, this covers the whole spectrum of issues. The quality is much higher than most multi-author books and it flows quite nicely with sections on the CDS market, correlation, CDOs, pricing models and regulatory issues. Best of all, most of the hot topics are covered here like the value of modified restructuring, equity-credit arb, static vs managed CDOs, Basle II and some really advanced pricing methods.

I have to say I strongly disagree with the reviewer who has slated this book and given it a measly 1 star - not sure they have really given their thoughts careful consideration (or even read the book properly). And they complain neither Lehman or Bank of America are represented in the book yet I can assure you there are chapters contributed by authors at both!