Increasing computational speed in pricing single tranche CDOs

In recent years enormous write offs in bank’s credit portfolios stimulated the demand for products that allow for an active trading of credit risk within the field of capital management. Securitization is a tool to reduce credit risk embedded on balance sheets. Thereby various assets are pooled in a portfolio that serves as collateral for issued notes. These asset backed securities (ABS) were initially aimed to securitize mainly mortgage and consumer loans of financial institutions in the early 1980s (Tavakoli [50]).
A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of ABS that was first set up to securitize junk bonds (below investment grade investments) in the late 1980s (Moore [41]). The growing demand for securitizing credit risk during the 1990s led to a tremendous rise in CDO issuance which was further stimulated by the introduction of synthetic CDOs whose portfolios consists of credit derivatives such as credit default swaps (CDS). In 2003 the CDO issuance volume was USD 94 billion, a rise of 27% compared to 2002.