In late '97 the so-called flu became a pandemic, Thailand's currency crashed, setting off a financial chain-reaction. Searching for a safe-haven investment, J.P. Morgan pitched a new credit derivative product.
A bank took a basket of hundreds of corporate loans on its books, calculated the risks of these loans defaulting, then tried to minimize its exposure by creating a special purpose vehicle and selling it in slices to investors (a seamless but ominous strategy). They were called insurance: J.P.Morgan was protected from the risk of the loans going bad and investors were paid premiums for taking the risk.
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