That last category includes a remarkably wide variety of engineered fabrics, ranging from those used to make doctors’ and nurses’ operating-room garb to some used in roofing materials; those products are especially interesting because they represent a small but fast-growing segment of specialty textiles within the broader textile industry.
However, thus far the dramatic widening of spreads on the riskier tranches of subprime securitizations has not produced spillovers large enough to threaten stability. Finally, although risks are better dispersed, the credit-risk transfer markets are dependent on a small set of key intermediaries.