Skin in the Game: How New Risk-Retention Rules Affect the CMBS Market

Prior to the Global Financial Crisis, issuers of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) passed 100% of the risk to bondholders. After the GFC, the Dodd-Frank Act instituted new rules requiring that any institution securitizing a pool of commercial mortgages retain at least 5% of the bond…

Structured Fixed Income vs. Derivatives: The Key Differences

In order to provide clarity about what can be an alphabet soup of names (CMBS? VIX?), this blog post provides an overview of how Callan categorizes two types of investment vehicles: structured fixed income products and derivatives.