Key Takeaways

* Domestic financial company CDS widened considerably last week on the heels of the JPM announcement.  JPM itself saw swaps widen 22% from 103 bps a week ago to 134 bps as of Friday. Only WFC has lower default risk, as measured by CDS.  Other moneycenters and broker-dealers saw CDS increase by 7 - 13%.  

* Nearly all European Bank CDS widened last week.  Two of the four big French banks are now trading above 300 bps on CDS, while the major Spanish banks we track are all above 400 bps.  European Sovereign CDS all widened last week as well, with Spanish CDS rising 11.5% to 541 bps. 

Financial Risk Monitor Summary

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Summary

1. US Financials CDS Monitor – Swaps widened for 25 of 26 major domestic financial company reference entities last week.  

Widened the most WoW: JPM, AXP, MBI

Tightened the most/widened the least WoW: MTG, RDN, UNM

Widened the most MoM: MTG,RDN, GNW

TIghtened the most MoM: COF, AIG, C

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - US CDS

2. European Financial CDS - Bank swaps were wider in Europe last week for 37 of the 39 reference entities. The average widening was 5.4% while the median widening was 4.9%. 

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - EURO cds

3. European Sovereign CDS – European Sovereign Swaps mostly widened over last week. Spanish sovereign swaps widened by 11.5% (56 bps to 541 ) and French sovereign swaps widened by 9.8% (19 bps to 214).

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Sov Table

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Sov CDS 1 2

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Sov CDS 2 2

4. High Yield (YTM) Monitor – High Yield rates rose 4 bps last week, ending the week at 7.11 versus 7.07 the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - HY

5. Leveraged Loan Index Monitor – The Leveraged Loan Index rose 3.4 points last week, ending at 1675.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - LLI

6. TED Spread Monitor – The TED spread fell -1.9 points last week, ending the week at 37.3 this week versus last week’s print of 39.2.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - TED

7. Journal of Commerce Commodity Price Index – The JOC index fell 2.8 points, ending the week at -7.76 versus -5.0 the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - JOC

8. Euribor-OIS spread – The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States.  Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal.  By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending.  Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk. The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 3 bps to 35 bps.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Euribor OIS

9. ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility – The ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility measures banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB.  Taken in conjunction with excess reserves, the ECB deposit facility measures excess liquidity in the Euro banking system.  An increase in this metric shows that banks are borrowing from the ECB.  In other words, the deposit facility measures one element of the ECB response to the crisis.  

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - ECB

10. Markit MCDX Index Monitor – The Markit MCDX is a measure of municipal credit default swaps. We believe this index is a useful indicator of pressure in state and local governments. Markit publishes index values daily on six 5-year tenor baskets including 50 reference entities each. Each basket includes a diversified pool of revenue and GO bonds from a broad array of states. We track the 16-V1. Last week spreads widened , ending the week at 152.25 bps versus 150.75 bps the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - mcdx

11. Baltic Dry Index – The Baltic Dry Index measures international shipping rates of dry bulk cargo, mostly commodities used for industrial production. Higher demand for such goods, as manifested in higher shipping rates, indicates economic expansion. Last week the index fell 19 points, ending the week at 1138 versus 1157 the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Baltic

12. 2-10 Spread – We track the 2-10 spread as an indicator of bank margin pressure.  Last week the 2-10 spread tightened to 158 bps, 4 bps tighter than a week ago.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - 2 10

13. XLF Macro Quantitative Setup – Our Macro team’s quantitative setup in the XLF shows 2.4% upside to TRADE resistance and 0.9% downside to TRADE support.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - XLF

Margin Debt - March: +0.91 standard deviations 

We publish NYSE Margin Debt every month when it’s released. NYSE Margin debt hit its post-2007 peak in April of 2011 at $320.7 billion. The chart below shows the S&P 500 overlaid against NYSE margin debt going back to 1997. In this chart both the S&P 500 and margin debt have been inflation adjusted (back to 1990 dollar levels), and we’re showing margin debt levels in standard deviations relative to the mean covering the period 1. While this may sound complicated, the message is really quite simple. First, when margin debt gets to 1.5 standard deviations or greater, as it did last April, it has historically been a signal of extreme risk in the equity market - the last two times it did this the equity market lost half its value in the ensuing period. We flagged this for the first time back in May 2011. The second point is that margin debt trends tend to exhibit high degrees of autocorrelation. In other words, the last few months’ change in margin debt is the best predictor of the change we’ll see in the next few months. We would need to see it approach -0.5 to -1.0 standard deviations before the trend runs its course. There’s plenty of room for short/intermediate term reversals within this broader secular move. Overall, however, this setup represents a long-term headwind for the market. One limitation of this series is that it is reported on a lag.  

The chart shows data through March. 

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CDS WIDEN ACROSS THE BOARD - Margin Debt

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Allison Kaptur

Robert Belsky

Having trouble viewing the charts in this email?  Please click the link at the bottom of the note to view in your browser.