Modelling Single-name and Multi-name Credit Derivatives - Hardcover

by Dominic O'Kane (Author)

Modelling Single-name and Multi-name Credit Derivatives presents an up-to-date, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the pricing and risk-management of credit derivatives. It is both a detailed introduction to credit derivative modelling and a reference for those who are already practitioners.

This book is up-to-date as it covers many of the important developments which have occurred in the credit derivatives market in the past 4-5 years. These include the arrival of the CDS portfolio indices and all of the products based on these indices. In terms of models, this book covers the challenge of modelling single-tranche CDOs in the presence of the correlation skew, as well as the pricing and risk of more recent products such as constant maturity CDS, portfolio swaptions, CDO squareds, credit CPPI and credit CPDOs.

Front Jacket

This book provides a unique, in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the modelling issues faced by credit modellers in the credit derivatives market.

--Frank J. Fabozzi, PhD, CFA, Professor in the Practice of Finance, Yale School of Management

Dominic O'Kane's many years of practical experience in credit derivative markets are evident everywhere in this well-rounded, lucid, and informative book. The author does an admirable job of covering both basic and advanced topics, throughout emphasizing substance over technicalities. The product coverage of the text is extensive, with virtually all practically relevant credit derivatives carefully described and analyzed. Both beginners and seasoned pros can learn from O'Kane's insights and his book deserves a wide readership. Highly recommended."

--Leif Andersen, Head of Quantitative Research, Banc of America Securities

Back Jacket

Modelling Single-name and Multi-name Credit Derivatives presents an up-to-date, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the pricing and risk-management of credit derivatives. It is both a detailed introduction to credit derivative modelling and a reference for those who are already practitioners.

This book is up-to-date as it covers many of the important developments which have occurred in the credit derivatives market in the past 4-5 years. These include the arrival of the CDS portfolio indices and all of the products based on these indices. In terms of models, this book covers the challenge of modelling single-tranche CDOs in the presence of the correlation skew, as well as the pricing and risk of more recent products such as constant maturity CDS, portfolio swaptions, CDO squareds, credit CPPI and credit CPDOs.

Divided into two parts, part one of this book covers single-name credit derivatives. Reflecting its importance as the building block for most other credit derivatives, the mechanics of the credit default swap (CDS) are covered in considerable detail. A chapter is then devoted to the risk-management of CDS. The pricing and risk-management of forward starting CDS, the option on a CDS and constant maturity CDS are then covered.

Part two of the book covers multi-name products and begins with the CDS index. The mechanics and pricing of the CDS index are set out in detail. A chapter on the pricing of options on the CDS index follows. Much of part two of the book is then devoted to the pricing and risk-management of single tranche CDOs. After discussing the Gaussian copula model and the numerical challenge of building the portfolio loss distribution, several chapters are devoted to the subject of modelling the correlation skew. This includes a detailed discussion of base correlation, copula-based skew models and dynamic correlation modelling.

Practical and accessible, Modelling Single-name and Multi-name Credit Derivatives does not assume any previous knowledge of credit derivatives. Products are explained in detail as are the requirements of any pricing model. While the book is undoubtedly mathematical, the emphasis is on building intuition, especially regarding the risk sensitivities of the product. Issues such as model requirements, model calibration and stability are addressed. Attention is paid to the need for optimising the computationally efficiency of the implementation, and detailed algorithms are presented which are simple for the reader to convert into their preferred programming language.

Author Biography

Dominic O'Kane is an affiliated Professor of Finance at the French business school EDHEC which is based in Nice, France. Until May 2006, Dominic O'Kane was a managing director and ran the European Fixed Income Quantitative Research group at Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank. Dominic spent seven of his nine years at Lehman Brothers working as a quant for the credit derivatives trading desk.