信用违约掉期可以休矣

    在金融界，应该有“三振出局”的规则。假如有这样的规则，信用违约掉期（credit default swaps，简称CDS）现在就可以进坟墓了。

    事实上，当一个月前摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）宣布交易巨亏20亿美元，而且损失还在不断扩大的时候，似乎并未对伦敦鲸交易的金融合约CDS究竟是什么做出多少解释。而且，很多报道也采用了此类金融合约的英文首字母缩写CDS——导致美国国际集团（AIG）破产的同类合约。

    周二（财富中文网注：指本周二，此文写于周一）早间，杰米•戴蒙将再次到美国国会作证，这次要回答众议院金融服务委员会（House Financial Services Committee）的提问。估计戴蒙可能还是那套说辞。除了一些细小的变化，预计戴蒙的开场白可能和上周他在参议院银行委员会（Senate's banking committee）的说辞一字不差。像上次一样，会有很多提问，关于金融监管，关于银行业是否应该获准进行高风险投资等等。但再一次地，不太可能有很多问题关于CDS，关于为何允许CDS交易继续存在，而且基本上缺乏监管。

    CDS合约允许投资者和交易员根据公司、国家或个人会不会偿还贷款进行相应押注。理论上，CDS的作用就像是保险合同。卖方承诺如果CDS所基于的贷款未获偿付，卖方将弥补买方的损失。事实上，CDS基本上不这么用。人们很少持有CDS，除非发生违约。事实上，CDS往往用于交易，理论上CDS的价格基于借款人的信用度上涨或下跌。

    当然，只是因为CDS近来引发了多场危机，并不是禁止它们的理由。1987年或2000年的股灾后，股票也没有被禁。取消CDS的理由是它不起效。路透（Reuters）近日报道，伦敦鲸的交易以及期待从摩根大通巨额头寸平仓中获利的对冲基金的交易，导致某些CDS合约价格上下波动，即便是合约所基于的公司实际信用度并未发生变化。Rochdale Securities银行业分析师迪克•伯弗表示，伦敦鲸的交易显示，CDS市场被操控，“这个市场有点问题。”

    比如，今年早些时候，与麦当劳（McDonald's）相关的CDS合约在这家连锁快餐厅公司几无消息传出并且绝无理由怀疑麦当劳偿债能力的情况下大涨了19%。与此同时，麦当劳的股价基本持平，下跌1.1%。有时，市场会完全脱离现实。这就是我们为什么会有泡沫。但CDS市场的问题是交易非常清淡，一个交易对手的举动就可能导致市场扭曲。结果就是市场不再理性。

    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.