DTCC Addresses Misconceptions About the Credit Default Swap Market
DTCC Addresses Misconceptions About the Credit Default Swap Market
New York, October 11, 2008
The
idea that the industry lacks a central registry for over-the-counter
(OTC) credit default swaps (CDS) is grossly misleading and has resulted
in inaccurate speculation on a number of matters, including the overall
size of the market, its role in the mortgage crisis, and the size of
potential payment obligations under credit default swaps relating to
Lehman Brothers. The extent to which such speculation has fueled last
week’s market turmoil is difficult to determine. The facts are these:
Central Trade Registry
• In November 2006, The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation
(DTCC) established its automated Trade Information Warehouse as the
electronic central registry for credit default swaps. Since that time,
the vast majority of credit default swaps traded have been registered
in the Warehouse. In addition, all of the major global credit default
swap dealers have registered in the Warehouse the vast majority all
contracts executed among each other before that date.
Size of the Market
• Reported estimates of the size of the credit default swap
market have so far been based on surveys. These surveys tend to
overstate the size of the market due to each party to a trade
separately reporting its own side. Thus, when two parties to a single
$10 million dollar trade each report their “side” of the trade, the
amount reported is $20 million, which overstates the actual size by a
factor of two since both reports relate to a single $10 million
contract. When examining the outstanding amount of actual contracts
registered in the Warehouse (not separately reported “sides”) as of
October 9, 2008, credit default swap contracts registered in the
Warehouse totaled approximately $34.8 trillion (in US Dollar
equivalents). This is down significantly from the approximately $44
trillion that were registered in the Warehouse at the end of April this
year.
Percentage of the Market Related to Mortgages
• Less than 1% of credit default swap contracts currently
registered in the Warehouse relate to particular residential
mortgage-backed securities. Mortgage-related index products also have
some components relating to residential mortgages and, as a whole, also
constitute a relatively small fraction of total credit default swaps
registered in the Warehouse.
Payment Obligations Related to the Lehman Bankruptcy
• One of the many central servicing functions of the Trade
Information Warehouse is to calculate payments due on registered
contracts, including cash payments due upon the occurrence of the
insolvency of any company on which the contracts are written.
Calculated amounts are netted on a bilateral basis, and then, for firms
electing to use the service, transmitted to CLS Bank (the world’s
central settlement bank for foreign exchange) where they are combined
with foreign exchange settlement obligations and settled on a
multi-lateral net basis. Currently, all major global credit default
swap dealers use CLS Bank to settle obligations under credit default
swaps. It is expected that all major institutional players in the
credit default swap market will use the same process for settlement by
the end of 2009.
• The payment
calculations so far performed by the DTCC Trade Information Warehouse
relating to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy indicate that the net funds
transfers from net sellers of protection to net buyers of protection
are expected to be in the $6 billion range (in U.S. dollar
equivalents).
DTCC has long supported the U.S. and global capital
markets as a critical part of their operational infrastructure. We
stand ready to play a constructive role in whatever overall regulatory
environment ultimately emerges for the credit default swap market. We
do believe, however, that whatever environment emerges should be based
on assessment of the facts as they stand, rather than speculation.
The publicly reported facts so far are the following:
1) the gross notional volume of CDS contracts written on
Lehman is around $400bn.
2) At the October 10 auction organized by the ISDA defaulted
Lehman bonds secured a recovery value of 8.7 cents on the dollar. CDS
protection sellers are thus called to pay out 91.3 cents of the insured face
value to the protection buyers on October 21.
3) In dollar terms, protection buyers are called to pay out
a gross amount of around $270-360bn as widely reported by observers.
4) The The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC)
argues that the gross amount ignores bilateral trades among counterparties that
cancel out. The net payout will only be in the range of $6bn instead of the
average $300bn reported in the press (i.e. divided by a factor of 50)
5) ISDA CEO Robert Pickel in January 2008 notes in a
response to Bill Gross’ (PIMCO) “Pyramids Crumbling” that, based on a recent
Fitch study for the year 2006, the difference between gross and net CDS
exposure is a factor of 50 and that the total CDS market exposure is not the
notional $50 trillion but just $1 trillion.
“要说除了‘裸露卖空’(Naked Short Selling)之外还有没有办法打压股价,那肯定是有的,比如卖空ETF、期货、期权、CDS(信用违约掉期)等,杠杆都比较大,股价压起来也很快,所以说对于裸露卖空的限制只是技术上增加一些成本,如果真想沽空,也不是很难。”7月17日,香港中文大学美股专家刘民教授告诉本报记者。