credit default swaps

n the short term, one of the only remaining stumbling block in the form of the ongoing default proceedings in Greece seem to be no match for the ongoing positive animal spirit of the equity market. Only a week ago, we got news that talks in…

Greece and the IMF appear to be pushing for as much as a 75% loss on NPV basis, while the banks, many of whom have written down 50% of their Greek holdings, appear willing to accept a 60-65% hit on the NPV basis. Participating in the…

Financial news links for 8 December 2011 including stories on Denmark and Danish bank capital, the European sovereign debt crisis and Spanish banks

By Claus Vistesen (see source of image at end of post) I have recently spent a few days in New York talking to clients as well as sneaking in a bit of marathon watching and a visit to the Guggenheim museum. Flying across the big pond…

I thought I should flag this since it a cornerstone of the present European sovereign debt crisis strategy.

Yesterday, I showed you that contagion had spread and default probabilities were blowing out right across Europe. Every single name on the list for sovereign credit default wideners was European and names like Austria, Estonia, and Slovakia…

Look at this chart of the sovereign credit default swap wideners today. Every single name is European. The only one with a sub-10% default possibility is Sweden, and they are not in the euro zone. That tells you something, doesn’t it? I…

You saw my comments in the last post on the damage Europe has done in making a mockery of the sovereign CDS market. The Italy situation is worse because of this. Below is a video clip from Monday night of the Lang & O’Leary Exchange, a…

Right now everyone is looking at monetisation and thinking this will save the day. You saw the Lakshman Achuthan video; clearly punters don’t think the US is going to double dip. Buy gold then. Maybe they are right, but I see weakness…

There is much truth to the generalization that European banks took on direct exposure to European sovereigns through the bond market, while top banks took exposure through selling insurance, primarily CDS, on the sovereigns. The latest BIS…