TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER

05/29/12 07:48AM EDT

Key Takeaways

* American and European bank swaps mostly tightened in the latest week. Notably, French and German banks saw their swaps fall WoW along with the US Global banks. 

* We are including a new Asia Financials CDS table this week, which includes major banks and brokers from China, Japan and India. The credit profile of Asia's financials was mixed over the last week, with 6 of the 12 reference entities we track tighter.

* Sovereign CDS mostly widened WoW. While much of the focus these days is on Spain and its banks, it's worth noting that Italy continues to press higher right alongside Spain. Ireland is also moving higher. 

Financial Summary

  Financial Risk Monitor Summary

• Short-term(WoW): Negative / 0 of 13 improved / 2 out of 13 worsened / 11 of 13 unchanged  

• Intermediate-term(WoW): Negative / 1 of 13 improved / 8 out of 13 worsened / 4 of 13 unchanged  

• Long-term(WoW): Positive / 4 of 13 improved / 3 out of 13 worsened / 6 of 13 unchanged

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Summary

1. US Financials CDS Monitor – Swaps tightened for 20 of 27 major domestic financial company reference entities last week.   

Tightened the most WoW: JPM, MTG, RDN

Widened the most WoW:  AXP, UNM, ACE

Widened the least MoM:  C, UNM, TRV

Widened the most MoM:   WFC, AXP, RDN

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - American Financials

2. European Financial CDS - Bank swaps were tighter in Europe last week for 28 of the 39 reference entities we track. French and German banks tightened across the board. The median tightening was 1.6%

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - European Financials

3. Asian Financial CDS -  Bank swaps were tighter in Asia last week for 6 of the 12 reference entities we track. The median tightening was 1.7%. 

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Asian Financials 2

4. European Sovereign CDS – European Sovereign Swaps mostly widened over last week. French sovereign swaps tightened by 7.2% (-16 bps to 205 ) and Italian sovereign swaps widened by 0.7% (+4 bps to 520).

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Sov Table

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Sov 1

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Sov 2

5. High Yield (YTM) Monitor – High Yield rates fell 1 basis point WoW, ending at 7.64 versus 7.65 the prior week.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - HY

6. Leveraged Loan Index Monitor – The Leveraged Loan Index fell 5.71 points last week, ending at 1646.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - LLI

7. TED Spread Monitor – The TED spread fell less than a basis point last week, ending at 38.3 this week versus last week’s print of 38.8.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - TED

8. Journal of Commerce Commodity Price Index – The JOC index fell 0.4 points, ending the week at -11.4 versus -11.1 the prior week.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - JOC

9. 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 widened by 2 bps to 41 bps.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Euribor OIS

10. 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.  

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - ECB

11. 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 168 bps versus 167 bps the prior week.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - MCDX

12. 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 -107 points, ending the week at 1034 versus 1141 the prior week.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Baltic Dry

13. 2-10 Spread – We track the 2-10 spread as an indicator of bank margin pressure.  Last week the 2-10 spread widened to 145 bps, 3 bps wider than a week ago.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - 2 10

14. XLF Macro Quantitative Setup – Our Macro team’s quantitative setup in the XLF shows 2.8% upside to TRADE resistance and 2.6% downside to TRADE support.

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - XLF

Margin Debt - April: +0.93 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 April. 

TUESDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS TAKE A BREATHER - Margin Debt

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Robert Belsky

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