CDS (Credit Default Swaps)

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Submitted by qwerty007 on June 13, 2008 - 8:01pm

Yet another acronym, and mystifying piece of financial shenanigans, of death defying proportions ($45 trillion). I see Rich brought up the subject a while ago, but it's hard to see how big a problem this really is, or is likely to be, and who exactly might be affected. Unregulated, under-reserved, and unknown carriers does sound like something that's just gone before.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/busine...
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-and-...

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Lots of numbers get thrown
Submitted by barnaby33 on June 15, 2008 - 6:42pm.

Lots of numbers get thrown around with how big the market place is. The thing to keep in mind is that the real damage isn't in the notional value of the CDS's(which are insurance policies of a sort), but the underlying that they are insuring against. Thats a much smaller, but still staggeringly large number.

i wory about how this settles
Submitted by patb on June 15, 2008 - 8:46pm.

i wory about how this settles at 0 percent loss when a company
goes down