Customer Reviews

The Securitization Markets Handbook: Structures and Dynamics of Mortgage- and Asset-Backed Securities

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There are not a lot of books out there on this topic and this one is great for what it attempts to do. It is not an end all be all type book that covers everything, but is a very good place to start. It touches the main points of history, motivation, products, structures, legal, accounting, credit enhancement, cash flow analysis, valuation and investment. Do not missunderstand me, even though it is somewhat general, this is a techinical book.

It lays out the basic mechanisms for monetizing a selected type of assets using flow diagrams, excerpts from prospectuses, accounting standards and cases studies. This method should satisfy practitioners from many fields as it hits on so many high level specifics.

This is my area of expertise and although I learned most of this on the fly, I still learned a few things from this book. I wished books like this were around when I got my start. The Fabozzi books, while great for academia, do not offer much to the non-PhD who works rather than teaches for a living. This book gives you something you use.

If you are an accountant, lawyer, structurer, collateral analyst, issuer, risk modeler, prepayment analyst, credit enhancer, bond analyst, portfolio manager or investor in or considering getting in to this area or just want to learn more about it, pick up this book.

Authors Charles Austin Stone and Anne Zissu's treatise on asset-backed securities is part handbook and part textbook, including technical charts, graphs and formulas. Both finance professors and Ph.D.'s, the authors are the founding editors of two financial quarterlies, `The Financier' and `The Securitization Conduit'. As you might expect from authors with their expertise, this book thoroughly covers the structure, dynamics and characteristics of various asset-backed securities. You might pick up the book to learn about the precise details of these instruments, or to refresh your memory for the fine points. It carefully explains how institutions package bond-type products for investors based on funding from different assets, such as mortgages or credit card payments. The authors fulfill every reader's wish for comprehensiveness, although they place a good deal less emphasis on style and readability. Even specialists will find this a challenging read, though it is an information-packed reference book. We believe it is useful and appropriate for professionals who need to know the technical details of particular market structures.

Superior introductory text in to CDO/ABS markets for those familiar with the more traditional asset classes. Gave in-depth examples and case studies from a variety of companies and clearly explains the convoluted terms specific to this asset class. Do not expect any valuations or pricing for these instruments as that is up to financial engineers and a Bloomberg terminal.

This book is a great introduction to the field, and also appears to be a great handbook for someone in the trenches. For most practicing attorneys though, the book's use is limited to understanding the dynamics and basic operation of the practice. A more focused work is recommended for legal professionals.

The information provided by this book is limited. It touches several variations of ABS using case studies and market introduction but has done nothing but repeat the securitization process and entities involving the process. It's ok as an intoduction book but far from a good "handbook". I would not recommend it for any quants or traders as it tells not much about how to model and hedge ABS's.