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SECURITIZATION AND DERIVATIVES 

 of the firm’s commodities business, and half or more of its interest rate and cur-
rencies business. From May  through November ,  billion, or , of
the  billion of trades made by Goldman’s mortgage department were derivative
transactions. 
When the nation’s biggest financial institutions were teetering on the edge of fail-
ure in , everyone watched the derivatives markets. What were the institutions’
holdings? Who were the counterparties? How would they fare? Market participants
and regulators would find themselves straining to understand an unknown battlefield
shaped by unseen exposures and interconnections as they fought to keep the finan-
cial system from collapsing.