As global markets toppled during the 2008 financial crisis, the Canadian market for non-bank asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) seemed on the verge of collapsing. Fueled by a top rating from DBRS, ABCP had found its way into the portfolios of some of Canada's most sophisticated investors as well as vulnerable retail investors who didn't know what they were holding. The failure of the $32 billion market could have tipped Canadian and foreign credit default swap markets into chaos if it weren't for the swift actions of a few powerful asset holders. Collectively, through the Montreal Accord and led by veteran Canadian lawyer Purdy Crawford, they managed to hold the Canadian ABCP market back from the brink of collapse by crafting a complex and innovative solution. Back from the Brink goes behind the scenes of the ABCP crisis to examine how a solution was reached and lessons learned that could prevent or mitigate future crises. The authors also examine the imaginative use of the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and describe the roles played by the banks, the major investors, rating agencies, and the financial regulators in the crisis's origins and conclusions. Back from the Brink holds important lessons for anyone interested in Canadian law, the future of complex investments, and Canada's capital markets.

Professional-level guidance on effectively trading ETFs in markets around the world The ETF Handbook is a comprehensive handbook for using Exchange Traded Funds, designed specifically for institutional investors and professional advisors seeking to improve ETF profitability. While ETFs trade like stocks, they are not stocks and the differences impact every aspect of their use. This book provides full guidance toward effectively monitoring, analyzing, and executing ETFs, including the technical details you won't find anywhere else. You'll learn how they work, where they fit, and who is using them, as well as the resources that exist to provide access for investors. This new second edition includes updated coverage on how business has moved from niche to mainstream, ETF performance and issuers around the world, and changes to the users of ETFs in the US. The companion website features instructional video, as well as ready-to-use spreadsheets for calculating NAV and IIV. Most of the literature surrounding ETFs is geared toward individual investors or traders, but this book is written from the professional perspective complete with the deeper mechanical information professionals require. * Learn the analysis and execution methods specific to ETFs * Discover why ETFs require a sophisticated level of skill * Consider how ETFs perform in different market environments * Examine the impact of managed ETF portfolio growth ETFs are incredibly flexible and valuable tools, but using them effectively demands a more sophisticated skillset, even among professional money managers and traders. Daily volumes and spreads do not tell the full story regarding availability and liquidity, and treating ETFs just like stocks can dramatically impact profits. The ETF Handbook is the professional's guide to the ETF markets worldwide with expert insight on the technical details that matter.

This is the first detailed study of how Bernard L. Madoff and his accomplices perpetrated a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions-what has been referred to as the "con of the century." In December 2008, Bernard L. Madoff was arrested for perpetrating a protracted Ponzi scheme of inconceivably huge proportions that defrauded clients of his securities company of nearly $20 billion-and was consequently sentenced to 150 years in jail. How did Madoff pull this off for years, even returning some or all of clients' money when they asked, while in actuality was financing the lavish lifestyles of himself, his family, and his accomplices with the stolen funds? And why didn't anyone in the highly regulated investment industry catch on sooner? Bernard Madoff and His Accomplices: Anatomy of a Con examines Bernard L. Madoff's unprecedented confidence game (con game), drawing back the curtain on what actually went on at his investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, and exposing the day-to-day activities of his accomplices that enabled the elaborate con to succeed for as long as it did. Through the examination of court testimony and other court documents, the mechanics of the con game become clear, elucidating how Madoff's friends and employees hustled money from investors; the methods by which false records, monthly statements to investors, and other documents were manufactured and mass-produced; and how a multitude of felonies and the highest levels of fraud became everyday practices. Presents the first study of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, the organization where the fraud began, was centered, and flourished by duping investors for at least a decade Documents how investors who depend on and trust investment professionals can lose money, especially given that some investment companies do not always act in their clients' best interests and that Wall Street regulators are often ineffective Takes readers backstage to see the intricate details of the "theatre production" of a con game-the playacting, performances, pretending, utilization of props, and false representations that are required to achieve a "standing ovation" (i.e., the total fleecing of the marks)

In 1918, the Soviet revolutionary government repudiated the Tsarist regime's sovereign debt, triggering one of the biggest sovereign defaults ever. Yet the price of Russian bonds remained high for years. Combing French archival records, Kim Oosterlinck shows that, far from irrational, investors had legitimate reasons to hope for repayment. Soviet debt recognition, a change in government, a bailout by the French government, or French banks, or a seceding country would have guaranteed at least a partial reimbursement. As Greece and other European countries raise the possibility of sovereign default, Oosterlinck's superbly researched study is more urgent than ever.

The story of banking in twentieth-century Oklahoma is also the story of the Sooner State's first hundred years, as Michael J. Hightower's new book demonstrates. Oklahoma statehood coincided with the Panic of 1907, and both events signaled seismic shifts in state banking practices. Much as Oklahoma banks shed their frontier persona to become more tightly integrated in the national economy, so too was decentralized banking revealed as an anachronism, utterly unsuited to an increasingly global economy. With creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and subsequent choice of Oklahoma City as the location for a branch bank, frontier banking began yielding to systems commensurate with the needs of the new century.
Through meticulous research and personal interviews with bankers statewide, Hightower has crafted a compelling narrative of Oklahoma banking in the twentieth century. One of the first acts of the new state legislature was to guarantee that depositors in state-chartered banks would never lose a penny. Meanwhile, land and oil speculators and the bankers who funded their dreams were elevating get-rich-quick (and often get-poor-quick) schemes to an art form. In defense of country banks, the Oklahoma Bankers Association dispatched armed vigilantes to stop robbers in their tracks.
Subsequent developments in Oklahoma banking include adaptation to regulations spawned by the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom, the 1980s depression in the oil patch, and changes fostered by rapid-fire advances in technology and communication. The demise of Penn Square Bank offers one of history's few unambiguous lessons, and it warrants two chapters--one on the rise, and one on the fall. Increasing regulation of the banking industry, the survival of family banks, and the resilience of community banking are consistent themes in a state that is only a few generations removed from the frontier.

This comprehensive source of information about financial fraud delivers a mature approach to fraud detection and prevention. It brings together all important aspect of analytics used in investigating modern crime in financial markets and uses R for its statistical examples. It focuses on crime in financial markets as opposed to the financial industry, and it highlights technical aspects of crime detection and prevention as opposed to their qualitative aspects. For those with strong analytic skills, this book unleashes the usefulness of powerful predictive and prescriptive analytics in predicting and preventing modern crime in financial markets.