pcyhuang

Epic Lehman CDS Auction Tomorrow: Timeline

Lehman's CDS - -- $400 Billion Notional Value Reduced to $8 Billion After Netting


For those people still interested in what happened today in the Lehman CDS auction today it was not the financial atomic bomb everyone expected. The entire cost of the nearly $400 Billion in CDS outstanding would up being only $8 Billion total once all the paperwork was worked out. It seems that banks bought/sold CDS from themselves. I'm sure there is some arcane accounting benefit to this that allowed them to profit but I'm not sure what it would be.

"It won't be easy to draw up a quick winners and losers column, however. Buyers of insurance are also sellers and vice versa. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association says all this netting out means the ultimate payout among trading partners may be closer to 2% of the gross outstanding $400 billion, or $8 billion."

I think the financial markets could breath a sigh of relief that there wasn't a giant smoking hole in the financial industry today. This may account for the end of day rally to some degree. It looks like we may get through this bloodied but not dead.

Full Story: messages.finance.yahoo...

Cheers,