Introduction
The landscape of financial markets has transformed significantly over the past few decades, owing to forces like deregulation, technological advancements, and increased capital mobility. As these factors continue to shape the 21st-century financial environment, institutions are increasingly turning to a variety of specialized assets and liabilities to achieve their financial objectives. These customized financial instruments can be broadly categorized into two forms: structured assets and synthetic assets.
Structured Assets: Redirecting Cash Flows
Structured assets encompass financial instruments that are meticulously designed, deconstructed, or reconstructed to alter underlying cash flows. This can be achieved through various means, such as creating special purpose entities or trusts and incorporating derivative contracts that derive their value from underlying references.
Synthetic Assets: Crafted from Derivatives
Synthetic assets, on the other hand, are instruments exclusively created from one or more derivatives. These contractual packages generate cash flows tailored to specific end-user requirements.
Duality of Assets
Interestingly, both structured and synthetic assets can be used to achieve similar financial results. For instance, a pool of secondary mortgages can be combined through a trust to create a mortgage-backed security (structured asset). Alternatively, a mortgage swap or total return swap can be crafted to replicate the cash flows of the same pool of mortgage-backed securities (synthetic asset). The choice between structured and synthetic assets depends on the specific financial goals and circumstances.
Recent Financial Innovation
While the roots of synthetic and structured assets trace back several decades, the most significant financial innovation and growth have taken place in recent times. Multiple factors, including derivative valuation methods, technological advancements, legal frameworks, market liquidity, cross-border capital flows, and financial creativity, have led to the development of increasingly sophisticated financial assets.
The role of Option Valuation Models: The advent of option valuation models in the early 1970s, notably the Black-Scholes-Merton model, revolutionized options trading and facilitated the creation of numerous new financial products.
Technological Advancements: The proliferation of powerful and cost-effective computing capacity in the 1990s and 2000s enabled the development of complex products reliant on intensive simulation-based pricing.
Legal Framework: Standardized legal documentation and agreements have streamlined transactions and dispute resolution, while legal frameworks like special purpose entities (SPEs) and trusts have driven new product development.
Market Liquidity: Growing interest among a broad range of users has increased market liquidity, especially for basic financial assets used in structured and synthetic contracts.
Core Financial Management Goals
In the world of finance, there are four core goals that institutions aim to achieve:
- Funding: Optimizing funding costs and maintaining a balanced portfolio of liabilities across markets and maturities.
- Hedging: Protecting against potential downside risks to minimize losses.
- Investing/Yield Enhancing: Increasing returns while preserving a desired risk profile.
- Speculating: Generating asset returns by taking on a higher level of risk.
Innovative Financial Solutions
Synthetic and structured assets offer innovative solutions to meet these core financial goals more effectively and efficiently. For instance, a company seeking funding can lower its costs by issuing a floating-rate note with an attached swap, while an investor aiming to speculate on an index can introduce a leveraged payout to enhance their risk/return profile.
The Evolving Landscape
As long as market volatility persists, these core financial management goals will continue to drive innovation and activity in the field of synthetic and structured assets. Repackaging, restructuring, or synthetically replicating asset or liability profiles can lead to the same financial objectives at a lower cost or for a higher return, making them a valuable part of the modern financial toolbox.