Facing dramatic product expansion, a slew of regulations and increased industry demand for new technology, buy-side risk managers should have a full agenda in 2005. Eriks Smidchens and Jasmeet Chada take a peek at the trends that could have a big impact in the coming year.

What is wrong with the existing model for reporting financial statements? Gordon E. Goodman examines the temporal problems plaguing the incumbent system, urges the major accounting regulators to adopt a new reporting standard and explains the logic behind alternative initiatives like remeasurement.

The market for covered bonds is growing quickly in Europe.Though they remain unaddressed by Basel II, new EU legislation may force firms to allocate capital against these popular secured debt products. Jonathan Golin takes a look at the regulatory challenges posed by covered bonds and suggests potential solutions.

Driven by the collapse of Enron, the US energy and oil markets have been in a state of flux the past three years. Glenn Labhart says that change will continue to be the name of the game in 2005, in the form of increased disclosure of project risks, operational risk ... click here for more details.

Risk and return in the US equity market have been impacted by recent changes in volatility. Edouard Senechal analyzes the specific effects of temporal and cross-sectional volatility declines and explains the nature of the relationship between market volatility and hedge fund risk.

Editors Letter The Road Ahead

Rakotomalala Takes CRO Helm at ASIA

The year ahead promises to be an exciting time for risk managers. Professionals working in the Basel II, operational risk and structured products areas will be in particular demand. But what factors are driving growth in these sectors? And what specific skill sets are employers searching for? Neil Hindle investigates.

Rating agencies play an important role in the evaluation of structured finance deals. But do the agenies provide consistent and reliable ratings for the credit risk community? Do they use different approaches when evaluating synthetic CDOs? And what purpose do these ratings really serve? Janet Tavakoli investigates.

Rabobank’s Richard Lumley has an insider’s perspective on the challenges posed by structured credit transactions. Recently, Lumley shared his opinions on the of the evolution of asset-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations, in both Europe and the US, with GRR contributor Robert Bothwell.