BenBullBear

Sovereign Default Outlook Causes Panic in CDS Market

I'm curious. Where do you get your estimate of $4 to $12 trillion of notional amounts for sovereign debt of emerging markets? The figures that I saw point to $1.4 trillion of CDS sold (notional amount) and this includes both emerging and mature economies (sovereigns).

You can find the data in the BIS tables for Dec 2007.
www.bis.org/statistics...

If you have evidence that this amount is a fraction of reality then we have a serious problem on our hands cause this would be 10-30 times the presumed $400 billion of notional insured on Lehman's debt!

Still, $1.4 trillion is no small amount considering that Lehman's debt gone belly up was enough to kill AIG and cause many others to scramble for some bailout money!

Anyone else can corroborate the $4-12 trillion of CDS written on emerging nation debt? Thx! Ben