The CDS Naked short
Forwarded from James, an interesting explanation of how CDS can create unlimited downward pressure on a stock. Personally, I have always thought that no CDS's should be sold that are not insuring an actual bond...
This insanity is caused by the CDS feedback loop; here's how it works.I buy a CDS on GE (a few weeks ago) for a couple hundred basis points ($200,000 per $10 million)The SELLER of that CDS protects against possibly having to pay by shorting whatever he can against that short credit position. This means he buys PUTs, he shorts the common, he does whatever he needs to in order to lay off that risk. He does this because if GE goes bankrupt their stock would presumably go to zero; therefore, if he has a potential $10 million exposure on the CDS he will short $10 million face value of the common stock, or buy enough PUTs to pay him $10 million if the stock goes to zero.The PUT writer (assuming he buys PUTs), being a market-maker, will in turn short the common to lay off the risk as well.This hammers the stock price which then reflects into the pricing models for the CDS, driving them higher.This cycle repeats; unfortunately credit rating models include market cap as one of their inputs, which causes a credit downgrade (eventually.)That in turn adds more pressure.This cycle is repeated until the company is destroyed.Why is this not a problem with options and straight short sales?Because with both straight short sales and PUT purchases the short side is required to post margin every night, and if the price goes the wrong way they get an immediate margin call and are required to buy that position back at a loss. That in turn puts pressure UPWARDS on share price and arrests the slide.As such the people selling short (whether stock or listed options) do not dare short in unlimited amounts, because if they get caught on the wrong side of a squeeze they are dead.The enforcement of risk against the people betting on a bankruptcy through regulated instruments puts a natural limit on their activity and prevents an unwarranted "death spiral".But in the CDS world there is no mark-to-market margin supervision, because there is no central counterparty supervising exposure and demanding it.As a consequence it is only the counterparty and the written document that can demand collateral posting and usually that is either on an infrequent schedule (monthly, quarterly, annually or on an "event") or in some cases not at all provided the writer maintains some specific credit rating criteria themselves!Without nightly margin supervision on CDS short positions these vehicles have turned into the means to launch monstrous focused attacks on specific companies; the buyer has limited risk and virtually unlimited reward.This is exactly like me buying fire insurance on your house, and in addition I can name the amount of insurance I want to buy, even exceeding the house's value!How nervous will you get if I buy $10 million in "fire insurance" against your $100,000 bungalow and then start stacking up gasoline cans in my driveway?As a direct and proximate cause of this ability to distort the market it becomes possible to create self-fulfilling prophecies almost on demand, with the people doing it profiting handsomely - at the expense of American workers and otherwise-sound companies.This form of exploitation of the market must stop.As I have repeatedly noted "The Bezzle" will be removed from our financial system one way or another. The problem with what we're doing now - refusing to address this issue - means that we will see companies dismantled one-by-one using this "tool" until huge parts of our corporate structure are laid waste, whether they deserve it or not.Had CDS been "common" during the 2000-03 tech wreck Cisco and many other sound firms (Amazon anyone?) would not now exist as a public company as they would have been driven to zero by this very same vehicle.President Obama: You can stop this with the stroke of a pen. Issue an executive order today that says:"Naked", that is, CDS that are not insuring an actual bond, which are not traded on a public exchange with nightly margin supervision, are uncollectable as contrary to the public interest. ALL CDS, covering a bond or not, are uncollectable six months hence unless they are traded on a public exchange with nightly margin supervision. This will force all CDS onto a public exchange and stop OTC dealing in these instruments. It will stop dead the writing of these instruments without the capital behind them to pay. It will stop the speculative attacks right now, resolve most of the AIG issue immediately, and within six months put a stop to all abuse of the CDS marketplace.If President Obama fails to do this imminently we may not have a functioning capital market for long enough for Congress to act and put these provisions into a statute.Yes, I know the ISDA's members and some others would likely sue the government immediately claiming a "taking". Nonsense; this executive order would only delay collection until the contract is posted to a public exchange and both sides net against the central counterparty, not prevent collection, provided the writer is solvent.If the writer is not solvent then the money isn't there to pay in the first place and the arguing over "takings" is academic since the agreed actions in the contract cannot be performed.A contract to do an impossible thing is not a contract.Let 'em sue - doing so will force discovery of the solvency of the writer of these contracts along with the identification of exactly who owes who what. THAT isn't something that the "market participants" want out in the public, is it?The insanity must stop now before the capital markets literally consume themselves, destroying not only the guilty firms but those that are otherwise solvent and able to operate through these rough economic times.If you're looking for a scenario where the shotguns could come out if the CDS insanity is not stopped that's one of the ways it can happen.
This insanity is caused by the CDS feedback loop; here's how it works.I buy a CDS on GE (a few weeks ago) for a couple hundred basis points ($200,000 per $10 million)The SELLER of that CDS protects against possibly having to pay by shorting whatever he can against that short credit position. This means he buys PUTs, he shorts the common, he does whatever he needs to in order to lay off that risk. He does this because if GE goes bankrupt their stock would presumably go to zero; therefore, if he has a potential $10 million exposure on the CDS he will short $10 million face value of the common stock, or buy enough PUTs to pay him $10 million if the stock goes to zero.The PUT writer (assuming he buys PUTs), being a market-maker, will in turn short the common to lay off the risk as well.This hammers the stock price which then reflects into the pricing models for the CDS, driving them higher.This cycle repeats; unfortunately credit rating models include market cap as one of their inputs, which causes a credit downgrade (eventually.)That in turn adds more pressure.This cycle is repeated until the company is destroyed.Why is this not a problem with options and straight short sales?Because with both straight short sales and PUT purchases the short side is required to post margin every night, and if the price goes the wrong way they get an immediate margin call and are required to buy that position back at a loss. That in turn puts pressure UPWARDS on share price and arrests the slide.As such the people selling short (whether stock or listed options) do not dare short in unlimited amounts, because if they get caught on the wrong side of a squeeze they are dead.The enforcement of risk against the people betting on a bankruptcy through regulated instruments puts a natural limit on their activity and prevents an unwarranted "death spiral".But in the CDS world there is no mark-to-market margin supervision, because there is no central counterparty supervising exposure and demanding it.As a consequence it is only the counterparty and the written document that can demand collateral posting and usually that is either on an infrequent schedule (monthly, quarterly, annually or on an "event") or in some cases not at all provided the writer maintains some specific credit rating criteria themselves!Without nightly margin supervision on CDS short positions these vehicles have turned into the means to launch monstrous focused attacks on specific companies; the buyer has limited risk and virtually unlimited reward.This is exactly like me buying fire insurance on your house, and in addition I can name the amount of insurance I want to buy, even exceeding the house's value!How nervous will you get if I buy $10 million in "fire insurance" against your $100,000 bungalow and then start stacking up gasoline cans in my driveway?As a direct and proximate cause of this ability to distort the market it becomes possible to create self-fulfilling prophecies almost on demand, with the people doing it profiting handsomely - at the expense of American workers and otherwise-sound companies.This form of exploitation of the market must stop.As I have repeatedly noted "The Bezzle" will be removed from our financial system one way or another. The problem with what we're doing now - refusing to address this issue - means that we will see companies dismantled one-by-one using this "tool" until huge parts of our corporate structure are laid waste, whether they deserve it or not.Had CDS been "common" during the 2000-03 tech wreck Cisco and many other sound firms (Amazon anyone?) would not now exist as a public company as they would have been driven to zero by this very same vehicle.President Obama: You can stop this with the stroke of a pen. Issue an executive order today that says:"Naked", that is, CDS that are not insuring an actual bond, which are not traded on a public exchange with nightly margin supervision, are uncollectable as contrary to the public interest. ALL CDS, covering a bond or not, are uncollectable six months hence unless they are traded on a public exchange with nightly margin supervision. This will force all CDS onto a public exchange and stop OTC dealing in these instruments. It will stop dead the writing of these instruments without the capital behind them to pay. It will stop the speculative attacks right now, resolve most of the AIG issue immediately, and within six months put a stop to all abuse of the CDS marketplace.If President Obama fails to do this imminently we may not have a functioning capital market for long enough for Congress to act and put these provisions into a statute.Yes, I know the ISDA's members and some others would likely sue the government immediately claiming a "taking". Nonsense; this executive order would only delay collection until the contract is posted to a public exchange and both sides net against the central counterparty, not prevent collection, provided the writer is solvent.If the writer is not solvent then the money isn't there to pay in the first place and the arguing over "takings" is academic since the agreed actions in the contract cannot be performed.A contract to do an impossible thing is not a contract.Let 'em sue - doing so will force discovery of the solvency of the writer of these contracts along with the identification of exactly who owes who what. THAT isn't something that the "market participants" want out in the public, is it?The insanity must stop now before the capital markets literally consume themselves, destroying not only the guilty firms but those that are otherwise solvent and able to operate through these rough economic times.If you're looking for a scenario where the shotguns could come out if the CDS insanity is not stopped that's one of the ways it can happen.
I don't buy any of this for many reasons. Starting with the most important: this whole argument is posited on the fact that the downward pressure comes, initially, from the person who is "short." There is really no such thing as "short" in the insurance business (CDS are insurances contracts, not securities you can be long or short); you're just selling protection. And selling protection has nothing to with whether or not the purchaser of protection owns the reference obligation (GE underlying FI instrument). The seller will act the same way whether the buyer has the underlying or doesn't. So, really, any CDS is bad according to this argument. Another flaw in this argument: to my knowledge, short sellers in the supposed nicely regulated common-stock short scenario only need to post margin when the stock price has increased...meaning there is already upward pressure...and if they have to sell to post margin...that is really just putting downward pressure on the stock, thus destroying this argument.
ReplyDeleteNot at all convinced by this one unfortunately...