The Credit Default Swap Basis

An up-to-date resource on the intricacies of the credit default swap basis While credit default swaps and credit derivatives are of great concern to many in the field of finance, the Second Edition of The Credit Default Swap Basis does not directly focus on these issues. It is instead about an aspect of CDS behavior, the basis, which is of importance to all users of CDS products. An understanding of the basis is essential to anyone involved in the credit-risky debt capital markets, whether you're an investor, trader, or broker. The credit default swap basis (the basis) defines the relationship between the cash and synthetic credit markets. Finance professionals need to understand the drivers of the basis in order to better undertake investment and value analysis, and for trading purposes. In this updated Second Edition, author Moorad Choudhry, a market practitioner who has published widely in the field of credit derivatives, explores this dynamic discipline and examines the structural changes in the CDS market, including new settlement mechanisms and contract standardization. Along the way, he describes how basis pricing has changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis and what that change means in regard to overall market and trading opportunities. The only book on basis issues of credit default swaps, it provides practitioners with vital information on valuation, credit risk assessment, and basis trading strategies Addresses structural changes to the market, including the introduction of central clearing houses in the U.S. and Europe and standardization of contracts to reduce disputes about payout settlements Covers the close relationship between the synthetic and cash markets in credit, which manifests itself in the credit default swap basis The Credit Default Swap Basis, Second Edition offers invaluable market insights to all financial professionals seeking a deeper understanding of credit derivatives and fixed income securities.

Credit Default Swaps: A Survey is the most comprehensive review of all major research domains involving credit default swaps (CDS). CDS have been growing in importance in the global financial markets. However, their role has been hotly debated, in industry and academia, particularly since the credit crisis of 2007-2009. The authors review the extant literature on CDS that has accumulated over the past two decades and divide the survey into seven topics after providing a broad overview in the introduction. The second section traces the historical development of CDS markets and provides an introduction to CDS contract definitions and conventions. The third section discusses the pricing of CDS, from the perspective of no-arbitrage principles, structural, and reduced-form credit risk models. It also summarizes the literature on the determinants of CDS spreads, with a focus on the role of fundamental credit risk factors, liquidity and counterparty risk. The fourth section discusses how the development of the CDS market has affected the characteristics of the bond and equity markets, with an emphasis on market efficiency, price discovery, information flow, and liquidity. Attention is also paid to the CDS-bond basis, the wedge between the pricing of the CDS and its reference bond, and the mispricing between the CDS and the equity market. The fifth section examines the effect of CDS trading on firms' credit and bankruptcy risk, and how it affects corporate financial policy, including bond issuance, capital structure, liquidity management, and corporate governance. The sixth section analyzes how CDS impact the economic incentives of financial intermediaries. The seventh section reviews the growing literature on sovereign CDS and highlights the major differences between the sovereign and corporate CDS markets. The eighth section discusses CDS indices, especially the role of synthetic CDS index products backed by residential mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis. The authors close with our suggestions for promising future research directions on CDS contracts and markets.

This book, unique in its composition, reviews the academic empirical literature on how CDSs actually work in practice, including during distressed times of market crises. It also discusses the mechanics of single-name and index CDSs, the theoretical costs and benefits of CDSs, as well as comprehensively summarizes the empirical evidence on important aspects of these instruments of risk transfer. Full-time academics, researchers at financial institutions, and students will benefit from the dispassionate and comprehensive summary of the academic literature; they can read this book instead of identifying, collecting, and reading the hundreds of academic articles on the important subject of credit risk transfer using derivatives and benefit from the synthesis of the literature provided.

The second edition of An Introduction to Credit Derivatives provides a broad introduction to products and a marketplace that have changed significantly since the financial crisis of 2008. Author Moorad Choudhry gives a practitioner's perspective on credit derivative instruments and the risks they involve in a succinct style without sacrificing technical details and scientific precision. Beginning with foundational discussions of credit risk, credit risk transfer and credit ratings, the book proceeds to examine credit default swaps and related pricing, asset swaps, credit-linked notes, and more. Ample references, appendices and a glossary add considerably to the lasting value of the book for students and professionals in finance. A post-crisis guide to a powerful bank risk management product, its history and its use Liberal use of Bloomberg screens and new worked examples increase hands-on practicality New online set of CDS pricing models and other worksheets multiply the book's uses

Credit default swaps (CDS) provide the buyer with insurance against certain types of credit events by entitling him to exchange any of the bonds permitted as deliverable against their par value. Unlike bonds, whose risk spreads are assumed to be the product of default risk and loss rate, CDS are par instruments, and their spreads reflect the partial recovery of the delivered bond's face value. This paper addresses the implications of the difference between bond and CDS spreads and shows the extent to which the recovery assumption matters for determining CDS spreads. A no-arbitrage argument is applied to extract recovery rates from CDS and bond markets, using data from Brazil's distress in 2002-03. Results are related to the observation that preemptive restructurings are now more common than straight defaults in sovereign bond markets and that this leads to a decoupling of CDS and bond spreads.

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 5.0 (Schweiz), University of Zurich (Wirtschaftswissenschaften), language: English, abstract: The current developments in the credit or bond markets, influenced by the financial crisis and the economic downturn, revive a discussion about credit derivatives as an instrument of speculation and one cause or determinant of the financial crisis. Currently, CDS are used to speculate against the solvency of the different governments. Critics look at CDS contracts as Overthecounter (OTC) instruments that are not regulated and as bilateral contracts which can have a big influence on the financial position of market participants and on the real credit markets. CDS contracts are mainly instruments for investors to insure against a default of the debtor. For the seller of the CDS they are a possibility to participate in risks he perhaps could not have taken on the bond markets otherwise. These contracts separate the default risk of the debtor from the market conditions, e.g. the market interest rates. They make it possible to only trade the credit risk of a company or a country. Therefore, they can be instruments to proof the bond values and indicators for the real credit risk of the underlying. The discussion about CDS contracts is mostly a discussion including many prejudices and it deals with aspects from different topics which cannot be mixed. Therefore, a clear picture of advantages and disadvantages and especially values and risks of CDS is difficult to be found in the current public discussion and economic newspaper articles. A further phenomenon is that bond markets and CDS markets have lost their connection in the financial crisis. So the credit risk on both markets is valued differently: the prices on the two markets differed so much that market participants used these arbitrage possibilities to earn credit riskfree money for themselves and their customers It can be traded with a simple com

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: Credit default swaps are by far the most often traded credit derivatives and the credit default swap markets have seen tremendous growth over the past two decades. Put simply, a credit default swap is a tradeable contract that provides insurance against the default of a certain debtor. Initially, when the first form of a credit default swap (CDS) was traded in 1991, they were mainly used by commercial banks in order to lay off credit risk to insurance companies. However, focus shifted in the subsequent years as new players entered the market. Hedge funds became big players, money managers and reinsurers entered, and banks started to not only buy protection on their assets but also sell protection in order to diversify their portfolios. All this led to today s CDS market being dominated by investors rather than banks and, as a consequence, CDSs are now structured to meet investors needs instead of those of the banks. Over the same time as this shift to an investor orientated market took place, CDS markets grew at an astonishing rate with notional amount outstanding pretty much doubling every year until peaking in the second half of 2007 at USD 62,173.20 billions. The need to effciently transfer credit risk as well as the increasing standardization of CDS contracts by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association propelled this development. Only in 2008 did the notional amount outstanding in CDSs retract for the first time and come down to USD 31,223.10 billion in the first half of 2009. A partial reason was the full blown financial crisis in which CDSs also played a prominent role. The demise of Lehman Brothers, for example, triggered roughly USD 400 billion in protection payments and American International Group needed to be bailed out in 2008 because it had sold too much CDS protection. Amongst other concerns, these incidents highlight the systemic importance of CDSs. Combined with the phenomenal growth of CDS markets, this makes CDSs a highly relevant component of the current ?nancial environment and a fruitful subject for academic research. Today, just like most other financial instruments, CDSs serve a multitude of purposes spanning hedging, speculation, and arbitrage. The aim of this thesis is to explore these uses further and answer the following research questions: What CDS trading strategies are commonly used and how does a selection of these strategies CDS curve trades including forward CDSs, [...]

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Credit Default Swaps (CDS) influence how bonds and loans trade and the relative value between bonds and loans. CDS can be the best way to hedge the risk of a corporate debt position and can also be a valuable investment tool in its own right. CDS has a multitude of nuances to it, from how its structured to how it is priced to how it is traded. If you are going to do analysis of corporate debt, especially in the leveraged finance market, you need to understand CDS. This booklet walks you through the basics of how CDS works, gives some perspective on how it has changed since the 2008 crisis and gives practical examples of how CDS is used and analyzed for corporate issuers. It is a valuable summary for anyone looking to do corporate credit analysis.