This chart shows the latest CDS spreads for several leading American banks:

http://baselinescenario.files.wordpress.co...

What it means:

The price of a credit default swap is referred to as its “spread,” and is denominated in basis points (bp), or one-hundredths of a percentage point. For example, right now** a Citigroup CDS has a spread of 255.5* bp, or 2.555%. That means that, to insure $100 of Citigroup debt, you have to pay $2.555 per year.

**November 2008

Today the Citi spread is 580 bp, Amex is 652 and Capital One is 526. All up from around 100 last summer.

Interpretation by economist Simon Johnson:

The credit default swap market is a modern Delphic Oracle. And after major statements such as yesterday, it’s worth pausing to reflect on, and argue about, what it really means.

Thursday’s statement, to me, was about US banks.

The risk of default for US banks, according to this market, is rising back towards levels not seen since mid-October. That is striking enough - but remember what has changed since then: (1) the G7 promised not to let any more systemic banks fail, (2) Treasury has provided repeated recapitalization funds on generous terms, and (3) the Fed offers massive, nontransparent funding to anyone in distress. How can it be that the credit market still or again feels the risk of default rising so sharply and to such high levels?

The most plausible interpretation is that people expect the government will force the conversion of junior bank debt into equity. The treatment of private preferred shareholders at Citigroup, last week, is seen as the harbinger of further losses for investors.

In a comprehensive systemic clean-up approach and complete recapitalization approach, debt-equity swaps** could potentially play a sensible role, particularly in countries without the fiscal capacity to sustain guarantees of all bank liabilities. But if they are done in chaotic crisis mode - as the government appears to be signalling - the additional damage to confidence around the world will be huge.

The events of mid-September 2008 were traumatic and awful to behold. I saw that trailer and I don’t want to see the movie. But it is exactly into that scary future that we now head.

It’s never too late to change policy, to make a difference, and to turn things around. But it is already very late.

http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/06/wha...

** debt/equity swap: a refinancing deal in which a debt holder gets an equity position in exchange for cancellation of the debt

Looks like March is going to be an interesting (and perhaps historic) month on Wall Street...