WA Today- Australia’s biggest life insurer and funds manager, AMP, was ducking for cover today. What are AMP’s holdings of CDOs, CLOs ABSs and CDSs?
Not much of an answer to that one. "We are holding a number of these instruments … but it is immaterial”.
Right, just like NAB’s holdings were immaterial until last Friday when it wrote down $830 million worth of CDOs (collateralised debt obligations).
The National Australia Bank is not alone when it comes to being played for a sucker by Wall Street hucksters flogging fancy derivative product.
We are talking fund managers, hedge funds, financial planners even a slather of local councils across the country. Many bought CDOs, CLOs (collateralised loan obligations), ABSs (asset backed securities) and other noxious structured finance products whose value is now in question.
