信用違約掉期可以休矣

????在金融界，應該有“三振出局”的規則。假如有這樣的規則，信用違約掉期（credit default swaps，簡稱CDS）現在就可以進墳墓了。

????事實上，當一個月前摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）宣布交易巨虧20億美元，而且損失還在不斷擴大的時候，似乎并未對倫敦鯨交易的金融合約CDS究竟是什么做出多少解釋。而且，很多報道也采用了此類金融合約的英文首字母縮寫CDS——導致美國國際集團（AIG）破產的同類合約。

????周二（財富中文網注：指本周二，此文寫于周一）早間，杰米?戴蒙將再次到美國國會作證，這次要回答眾議院金融服務委員會（House Financial Services Committee）的提問。估計戴蒙可能還是那套說辭。除了一些細小的變化，預計戴蒙的開場白可能和上周他在參議院銀行委員會（Senate's banking committee）的說辭一字不差。像上次一樣，會有很多提問，關于金融監管，關于銀行業是否應該獲準進行高風險投資等等。但再一次地，不太可能有很多問題關于CDS，關于為何允許CDS交易繼續存在，而且基本上缺乏監管。

????CDS合約允許投資者和交易員根據公司、國家或個人會不會償還貸款進行相應押注。理論上，CDS的作用就像是保險合同。賣方承諾如果CDS所基于的貸款未獲償付，賣方將彌補買方的損失。事實上，CDS基本上不這么用。人們很少持有CDS，除非發生違約。事實上，CDS往往用于交易，理論上CDS的價格基于借款人的信用度上漲或下跌。

????當然，只是因為CDS近來引發了多場危機，并不是禁止它們的理由。1987年或2000年的股災后，股票也沒有被禁。取消CDS的理由是它不起效。路透（Reuters）近日報道，倫敦鯨的交易以及期待從摩根大通巨額頭寸平倉中獲利的對沖基金的交易，導致某些CDS合約價格上下波動，即便是合約所基于的公司實際信用度并未發生變化。Rochdale Securities銀行業分析師迪克?伯弗表示，倫敦鯨的交易顯示，CDS市場被操控，“這個市場有點問題?！?/p>

????比如，今年早些時候，與麥當勞（McDonald's）相關的CDS合約在這家連鎖快餐廳公司幾無消息傳出并且絕無理由懷疑麥當勞償債能力的情況下大漲了19%。與此同時，麥當勞的股價基本持平，下跌1.1%。有時，市場會完全脫離現實。這就是我們為什么會有泡沫。但CDS市場的問題是交易非常清淡，一個交易對手的舉動就可能導致市場扭曲。結果就是市場不再理性。

????In finance, there should be a three-strikes-and-you're-out rule. If there were, credit default swaps would be headed for the graveyard.

????Indeed, when JPMorgan Chase (JPM) announced its $2 billion and counting trading loss a month ago, there seemed to be little explanation of what exactly credit default swaps, the financial contracts the London Whale had been trading, were. Instead, many stories used this short-hand description for the financial contracts instead: the same things that caused AIG to go bust.

????On Tuesday morning, Jamie Dimon will be in front of Congress again, this time to answer questions from the House Financial Services Committee. Dimon is expected to stick to the same script, literally. Save a few small changes, Dimon's opening remarks are expected to be nearly word-for-word identical to those he delivered when he testified in front of the Senate's banking committee last week. Like last time, there will be a lot of questions about financial regulation and whether banks should be allowed to place risky bets. But once again there is unlikely to be a lot of questions about credit default swaps and why they are allowed, mostly unregulated, to continue to exist.

????Credit default swaps, or CDS, are contracts that allow investors and traders to bet on whether a company, a country or a group of companies, countries or individuals will pay back their loans. In theory, CDS work like insurance contracts. Sellers promise to cover the losses of the buyer of the contract if the loan the CDS is based on isn't repaid. In fact, CDS aren't really used that way. CDS are rarely held until a default occurs. Instead they are traded, in theory rising and falling based on the credit worthiness of borrower or borrowers.

????Of course, just because CDS have been at the heart of a number of recent blow-ups isn't a reason to ban them. Stocks weren't banished after 1987, or 2000. The reason to get rid of CDS is that it doesn't work. Reuters recently reported that trading by the London Whale, and thehedge funds that were looking to make money off of the unwinding of the bank's outsized trades, caused the price of certain CDS contracts to jump and fall, even though the actual credit worthiness of the companies the contracts were based on hadn't changed. Bank analyst Dick Bove for Rochdale Securities says the London Whale trades show that the CDS market is manipulated. "There's something wrong with this market," says Bove.

????Earlier this year, CDS contracts tied to McDonald's (MCD), for instance, rose 19%, during a period when there was almost no news about the restaurant company, and certainly no reason to suspect McDonald's would have a harder time paying back its debt. In the same time, McDonald's stock price barely moved, down 1.1%. Markets can become out of touch with reality for some time. That's how we get bubbles. But the problem with the CDS market is that it's so thinly traded that the actions of one player can cause market distortions. That's supposed to be left to the idiocy of crowds.