Friday, March 6, 2009

ICE Cleared By SEC, CDS Clearinghouse Launches Monday

As expected, the SEC promptly granted an exemption for the ICE to begin guaranteeing CDS. ICE competitor CME Group has not received an SEC exemption and it is not clear how long it would take for the SEC to make a decision on the competitive platform.

Either way, the ICE has said it will begin backing trades in the market as soon as Monday of next week. Farewell basis trade (unless our readers feel otherwise, in which case we welcome their thoughts). Sphere: Related Content
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

CDS has gotten pretty illiquid but gotta think still easier to trade then cash...

Anonymous said...

We should all sleep better now that we have a CDS clearing house backed by BAC, C and UBS.

What next, Ken Lewis teaching an M/A class at Harvard?

Anonymous said...

Not so sure this will help. First, Lehman failed and meltdown didn't come from counterparty risk surrounding CDS written by Lehman. Second, make CDS more expensive (ie, increase collateral), less participation, less liquid, higher spreads, more companies go bankrupt as the rating agencies kill them off as their CDS spreads widen and stocks fall. We'll see.

Anonymous said...

I suspect that the ICE will stick to indexes and avoid single names for a while.

Anonymous said...

Whats and ICE and what is CDS?

Anonymous said...

For the last comment, just watch 60 Minutes...they are spot on!

CDS still more liquid than cash by far..bid/offer wide but there is a bid...

Indicies only at first on ICE. Single names will take a little longer...got to get past the next roll and the ModR/NoR issue...when most of trades are the same, ICE will be open for biz...