Credit markets: Calm at the eye of the storm?

The credit crunch has made life especially difficult for the credit portfolio managers charged with hedging commercial banks’ massive corporate loan portfolios. Lack of liquidity in credit default swaps and the closure of the CLO market has greatly reduced their arsenal of hedging tools. It’s not all bad news though. Wild market conditions have underscored the importance of actively hedging loan books and served to justify portfolio management groups’ existence to banks’ top management.

The predicament of primary loan book hedging

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WHO WOULD WANT to be a bank credit portfolio manager in the fourth quarter of 2007?

Fear has led to substantial reductions in liquidity in the cash bond, loan and CDS markets, leaving banks scrambling to manage their leveraged loan exposures and assess the damage in their structured credit positions.

Credit portfolio management groups have been preparing themselves for the bad times since banks pulled themselves out of the last recession, which was marked by several high-profile corporate defaults.

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