Mastering Credit Derivatives: A step-by-step guide to credit derivatives and structured credit, Second Edition

Chapter 1. Introduction

	‘Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler’
	--Albert Einstein

When approaching the structured credit market in a strategic way, one of the most daunting tasks is balancing complexity and simplicity. As in the physical sciences, expressing concepts in the simplest form is appealing. Yet, the state-of-the-art in financial engineering, combined with increasing demand for complexity from credit investors, can make this process a challenge. Thinking about concepts intuitively and strategically in a straightforward manner will remain one of the goals for this introduction to structured credit products.

‘Structured credit’ means different things to different people, but I tend to think of it literally. Structured ...