$12.$ Global economic crisis

One of the most discussed topics in finance recently is the global economic crisis that is said to have begun in the $2000$s$.$ Your professor instructed your team to write an article for the college newspaper. Your friend has written the first draft of the article, which captures the essence of the global economic crisis. She has left some important points for you to review and has asked you to check the summary.

Mortgage originators issued mortgages to home buyers and sold these mortgages to securitizing firms. These firms bundled these mortgages into pools and created securities that were backed by the mortgage payments. A portion of these pools were called tranches. Groups of tranches were further combined and then divided again into more complex securities called collateralized debt obligations $($CDOs$).$ These securities were redivided and recombined to create even more complex securities called CDOs$-$squared.

This process had important implications: $(1)$ The total risk embedded in the mortgages did not change; $(2)$ since the risk was spread amongst several CDOs, it was difficult to assess the risk in each CDO; and $(3)$ during the process of securitization and resecuritization, financial institutions earned fees and were thus encouraged to continue this process.

These securities were sold to investors across the world. If all went well, home buyers would make their payments and investors would earn their returns. However, a series of mortgage defaults led to the meltdown. Investors who were the indirect lenders to the home buyers didn$$t receive the expected cash flows, and on top of that, financial institutions skimmed fees during the process.

Summary

Which statements belong in the summary? Check all that apply.

Rating agencies, such as Moody$$s and Standard & Poor$$s$,$ earned fees from securitizing agencies for providing ratings for CDOs. The securitizing agencies were looking for higher ratings for their CDOs, and the rating agencies were earning fees. This led to a conflict of interest; thus, ratings did not reflect the true risk involved in the CDOs, which were backed by mortgages.

Borrowers who met certain requirements for mortgages, such as minimum income level relative to the total mortgage amount, could obtain mortgages that were qualified to be securitized$.$ Such mortgages were called subprime, or Alt$-$A$,$ mortgages.

In the $2000$s$,$ specialized mortgage brokers were allowed to originate mortgage loans. Earlier mortgage loan originators were Savings & Loan associations $($S&Ls$)$ or banks.

Mortgage payments based on short$-$term interest rates$$called adjustable$-$rate mortgages $($ARMs$)$were preferred by subprime borrowers.

Factors that caused the financial crisis

Analysts and theorists have debated over the different factors that caused the subprime mortgage meltdown. According to your understanding of the crisis, which of the following factors led to the financial crisis? Check all that apply.

Mortgage brokers did not verify borrowers carefully.

Credit default swaps claimed to insure CDOs.

Home buyers opted for traditional fixed$-$rate mortgages to avoid any payment delinquency.

Investors were fully aware of the risks involved, yet still settled with low returns.