Credit Default Swaps Are Next to Take the Crunch Test

Investors are already reeling from the recognition that major banks inaccurately estimated losses from the mortgage debacle. If further write-downs emerge as a result of hedges that did not work, investor confidence could take another dive.

To be sure, the $45 trillion in credit default swaps is not an exact reflection of what would be lost or won if all the underlying securities defaulted. That figure is impossible to pinpoint since the amounts that are recovered in default situations vary.

But one of the challenges facing participants in the credit default swap market is that the market value amount of the contracts outstanding far exceeds the $5.7 trillion of the corporate bonds whose defaults the swaps were created to protect against.

To the uninitiated trying to understand this complex market, its size might initially seem a comfort, as if there were far more insurance covering the bonds than could ever be needed.

But because each contract must be settled between buyer and seller if a default occurs, this imbalance can present a problem.

Typically, settling the agreements has required the delivery of defaulted bonds if the insurance buyer wants to be fully covered. If the insurance contracts exceed the bonds that are available for delivery, problems arise.

For example, when Delphi, the auto parts maker, filed for bankruptcy in October 2005, the credit default swaps on the company’s debt exceeded the value of underlying bonds tenfold.

Buyers of credit insurance scrambled to buy the bonds, driving up their price to around 70 cents on the dollar, a startlingly high value for defaulted debt.

Market participants worked out an auction system where settlements of Delphi contracts could be made even if the bonds could not be physically delivered.

This arrangement was done at just over 36 cents on the dollar; so buyers of protection on Delphi who did not have the bonds received $366.25 for every $1,000 in coverage they had bought. Had they been valuing their Delphi insurance coverage at $1,000 per bond, they would have had to write off that position by $633.75 per $1,000 bond.

That is why the valuation of these contracts is of such concern to some participants.

As with other securities that trade privately and by appointment, assigning values to credit default swaps is highly subjective. So some on Wall Street wonder how much of the paper gains generated in these instruments by firms and hedge funds last year will turn out to be illusory when they try to cash them in.

“The insurance business is very difficult to quantify risk in,” said Mr. Farrell of Annaly Capital Management. “You have to really read the contract to make sure you are covered. That is going to be the test of the market this year. As defaults kick in and as these events unfold, you are going to find out who has managed this well.”

And who hasn’t.