Credit Default Swap Contracts Research Articles

Policy uncertainty, bad news disclosure, and stock price crash risk

This paper documents that economic policy uncertainty reduces future stock price crash risk by increasing firms’ disclosure of bad news. Our tests show that firms release more bad news during periods of high policy uncertainty – they use more conservatism accounting, exhibit stronger future earnings response coefficients, use more negative tones in their financial reports, and have managers that express more negative sentiment in earnings conference calls than during periods of low policy uncertainty. Additional analyses show that the negative relation between EPU and future stock price crash risk is more pronounced among firms with more short-sale constraints, with no actively traded credit default swap contracts, with lower options-implied negative skewness, or with higher firm-level political risks. The results from regressions adopting the instrumental variable approach and from a quasi-natural experiment suggest that the negative relation observed between policy uncertainty and stock price crash risk is unlikely to be driven by potential endogeneity.

The demand for central clearing: To clear or not to clear, that is the question!

This paper empirically analyses whether post-global financial crisis regulatory reforms have created appropriate incentives to voluntarily centrally clear over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contracts. We use confidential European trade repository data on single-name sovereign credit default swap (CDS) transactions and show that both seller and buyer manage counterparty exposures and capital costs, strategically choosing to clear when the counterparty is riskier. The clearing incentives seem particularly responsive to seller credit risk, which is in line with the notion that counterparty credit risk (CCR) is asymmetric in CDS contracts. The riskiness of the underlying reference entity also impacts the decision to clear as it affects both CCR capital charges for OTC contracts and central counterparty clearing house (CCP) margins for cleared contracts. Lastly, we find evidence that when a transaction helps netting positions with the CCP and hence lower margins, the likelihood of clearing is higher.

The impact of CDX spreads on individual credit default swap contracts

The impact of CDX spreads on individual credit default swap contracts

The impact of CDX spreads on individual credit default swap contracts

The impact of CDX spreads on individual credit default swap contracts

Counterparty Risk and Counterparty Choice in the Credit Default Swap Market

We investigate how market participants price and manage counterparty credit risk using confidential trade repository data on single-name credit default swap (CDS) transactions. We find that counterparty risk has a modest impact on the pricing of CDS contracts but a large impact on the choice of counterparties. For contracts ineligible for central clearing, we show that market participants are significantly less likely to trade with counterparties whose credit risk is highly correlated with the credit risk of the reference entities and with counterparties whose credit quality is low. For clearable contracts, we find that nondealers are more likely to clear during a crisis and less likely to clear when the reference entity is a large U.S. dealer or a sovereign. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance. Supplemental Material: The internet appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4870 .

Does credit default swap trading improve managerial learning from outsiders?

AbstractWe investigate whether credit default swap (CDS) trading results in managers learning new information through stock prices that is relevant to their investment and forecasting decisions. We argue that the CDS market structure, the sophistication of CDS market participants, and the cleanness of CDS spreads as a signal of default risk together produce and convey information that is new to managers of firms referenced in CDS contracts. We consider two measures for managerial learning: (1) the sensitivity of managerial investments to share prices and (2) the sensitivity of changes in management forecast accuracy to stock returns. We find that both sensitivity measures increase significantly when firms are referenced in any traded CDS contracts, indicating that CDS trading improves managerial learning. We also find that the improvement in managerial learning is more pronounced for firms that are subject to higher uncertainty in industry‐specific and economy‐wide prospects, consistent with the view that CDS market participants have informational advantages with respect to the industry‐level and macroeconomic environments. We further find that the improvement in managerial learning is more evident for firms with higher credit risk. Our findings provide large‐sample evidence on a positive consequence of CDS trading in the context of managers' ability to learn from outside investors.

Pricing of Credit Default Swaps from the Perspective of Credit Enhancement in PPP Projects

The difficulty in financing has become the primary obstacle in the process of promoting a public–private partnership (PPP). Asset securitization is a financial model that can exchange the predictable cash flow of illiquid PPP project assets with the current cash flow, and credit enhancement is crucial in this process. Different from the traditional external credit enhancement of PPP projects based on government guarantees, this paper introduces an innovative credit risk management tool, i.e., credit default swaps (CDS), into the process of asset securitization in the PPP model. In order to avoid opportunistic behavior caused by information asymmetry in the process of financial product transaction, a CDS trading contract between PPP project investors and risk management institutions based on the principal–agent theory and a flexible CDS pricing model is proposed. Through a demonstration case of the Leshan to Rongjiang Expressway in China, the volatility correlation among CDS contract default probability, pricing, and related factors, such as default limits, operation period, compensation amount, project investment return, investment return volatility, and PPP project investors’ expected inputs, is obtained. The study shows that (1) appropriate CDS pricing helps to generate investors’ high expected inputs and diligence with controls; (2) there is a positive correlation between the change of default limit and compensation amount, and the set value of default limit should not be too high, otherwise it may induce the increase of default probability; and (3) based on the high return on assets and moderate asset volatility of PPP projects, the probability of default of CDS contracts is low. The innovative financial mechanism developed by the principal–agent theory could enrich the credit enhancement methods in asset securities of PPP projects.

SPECIFICATION ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL CREDIT RISK MODEL WITH STOCHASTIC VOLATILITY

In this research, we conduct specification analysis of structural credit risk models with stochastic volatility using term structure of Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads and equity volatility form high-frequency return data. We also test five representatives of structural credit risk models using samples of 93 single name CDS contracts from January 2010 -2022. The model we consider are; the standard Merton(1974) model, the Black & Cox (1976) model with flat barrier, the Longstaff and Schwartz(1995)model with stochastic interest rates, the Collin- Dufresne and Goldstein (2001) model with stationary leverage, and the double exponential jump diffusion model used in Huang & Huang(2003). Our study provides consistent econometric estimation of the pricing model parameters and specification tests based on the joint behavior of time-series asset dynamics and cross-sectional pricing errors. Our empirical tests reject strongly the standard Merton (1974) model, the Black and Cox (1976) with flat barrier model, the Longstaff, Schwartz (1995) model with stochastic interest rates. The double exponential jump-diffusion barrier model used in (Huang and Huang, 2003) improves significantly over the five models. The best model is the stationary leverage model of Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein (2001), which we cannot reject at 0.5 level of significance in our sample firm. However, our empirical results document the inability of the existing structural models to capture the dynamic behavior of CDS spreads and equity volatility, especially for high investment grade names derivatives. These points to a potential role of time-varying asset volatility, a feature that is missing in the standard structural models.

Credit default swaps and debt specialization

We examine the effect of credit default swaps (CDSs) on debt specialization. We argue that reference firms in CDS contracts, seeking to minimize creditor conflicts and bankruptcy costs, exhibit higher debt concentration than firms on which no CDSs are traded. Our results show that firms engage in greater debt specialization and are more likely to specialize following the inception of CDS trading. Additionally, we find that, while lender concentration in firms increases, the number of bank lenders drops, lead arranger share rises, and the probability that lead arrangers and lenders are repeated increases following the onset of CDS trading. Our results are robust to instrumental variable estimation, propensity-score matching, different model specifications, and different subsamples.

Credit Default Swaps and Borrowers’ Real Earnings Management: Evidence From Credit Default Swap Initiation

In this study, we examine whether the initiation of credit default swap (CDS) trading alters borrowers’ real earnings management activities. Creditors increase debt supply and loosen loan contracts after CDS initiation, which in turn lessens borrowers’ pressure to resort to real earnings management as a way of lowering the cost of debt and increasing debt capacity. Consistent with this prediction, we find that borrowers reduce myopic real earnings management activities after CDS initiation. Furthermore, we show that this negative association between CDS initiation and real earnings management is more pronounced for borrowers with safer financial status and fewer debt covenants. Our findings remain robust to conducting a parallel trend analysis, employing the propensity score matching and the two-stage instrumental variable methods, using alternative measures of real earnings management, and controlling for accrual-based earnings management. Overall, our study suggests a potential “bright side” of CDS contracts by showing that the introduction of CDS contracts reduces, rather than exacerbates, borrowers’ myopic real earnings management behavior.

Indifference pricing of credit default swaps in a multi-period model

Credit default swaps (CDS) are the most common type of credit derivatives used for hedging and speculative purposes in credit markets. We consider a representative risk-averse investor who has initial endowment in credit instrument and invests in traditional financial instruments. Using the utility indifference pricing approach, we construct a pricing framework for single-name CDS contracts with periodic payments in a multi-period model. Moreover, we analyze CDS buyers with different trading motives, and examine the effect of risk aversion on the indifference upfront prices and credit spreads of CDS for investors with hedging or speculative motives. In particular, our results show that speculation in the CDS market provides a potential explanation for the formation of the negative CDS-bond bases during and after the global financial crisis.

CDS contract initiations: REIT board monitoring and corporate decision outcomes

AbstractIn this article, we investigate whether the negative creditor governance shock due to the initiation of credit default swap (CDS) contracts results in monitoring substitution effects between bondholders and shareholders. Using several mechanisms to test increased shareholder monitoring such as board structure, CEO–chair duality, and institutional ownership, we show that shareholder monitoring increases post‐CDS contract initiation. We examine board decision outcomes and show that incentive compensation is higher for real estate investment trusts (REITs) post‐CDS initiation. Furthermore, we find that post‐CDS initiation, REITs undertake more acquisitions that are more likely to be paid for with stocks and take longer to complete than non‐REITs. Finally, we find that REITs industry‐adjusted cash holdings and dividend yield increases post‐CDS initiation.

Internet Searches, Household Sentiment, and Credit Spreads

We use Google internet search volumes to measure households’ pessimism about overall market-wide credit health in the economy and show that this “household default sentiment” is positively correlated with the credit default swap (CDS) spread level in the market. However, while household default sentiment might drive the cost of credit to some degree, either directly or indirectly through its effect on the stock market, we find the stock market’s opinion about the credit risk in the economy (default probabilities backed out from structural models) to be much more important in explaining credit spreads. The rather weak link between household sentiment and CDS spreads, meanwhile, is consistent with the almost complete absence of retail investors (households) in the institutional investor-dominated credit derivatives market. The results are essentially the same, whether we look at market-wide CDS indexes or single-name CDS contracts, and whether we exclude the financial crisis or not.

The man in the middle—liquidity provision under central clearing in the credit default swap market: A regression discontinuity approach

AbstractIn this study, I analyze the effect of central clearing on credit default swap (CDS) market breadth, depth, and resiliency using a regression discontinuity design. I find evidence for a decrease in absolute bid–ask spreads and bid–ask spread resiliency and an increase in gross trading volume with the beginning of central clearing. However, we observe positive effects of central clearing on CDS market liquidity only for CDS contracts of high fundamental and liquidity risk. Further results indicate that lower trading frictions, that is, counterparty risk and regulatory capital charges, may explain the positive effects of central clearing on CDS market liquidity.

The Effect of company's Interest Coverage Ratio on the Structural and Reduced-Form Models, in Predicting Credit Derivatives Price

Derivatives pricing models use either fixed or variable interest rates at the corporate level to compensate for the devaluation, which results in an estimated accounting profit caused by the cash inflation at the maturity date. These models also fail to take into account the lost opportunity costs, which are considered a deficiency. Accordingly, the present study strives to remove this problem by adding the company's Interest Coverage Ratio (ICR) to pricing models; which is the novelty of this study. The research data were extracted from the Bloomberg Terminal for an eight-year period from 2008 to 2015. The statistical population of the research includes the North American and European companies recognized as the reference entities for Credit Default Swaps (CDS) in the given period, and the statistical sample consists of 125 companies. The data were analysed using four Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms, viz., ANFIS, NNARX, AdaBoost, and SVM. . The results of the research indicated the increased predictive accuracy of the pricing models under scrutiny after adding the interest coverage ratio. The findings also shed light on the superiority of the intensity model over the structural model in prognosticating the price of CDS contracts.

Counterparty Risk in Over-the-Counter Markets

AbstractWe study trading and risk management decisions of banks in over-the-counter markets, accounting for 2 types of risk: payoff risk from loans and counterparty risk from trading activities. Our model provides empirically supported predictions on the structure of the interbank credit default swap (CDS) market: i) banks with high default probabilities either buy or sell CDS contracts; ii) because of the counterparty risk friction, payoff risk is only partially shared; and iii) safe banks act as intermediaries and help diversify counterparty risk. Banks manage their default probabilities to become creditworthy counterparties, but they do so in a socially inefficient way.

Credit Default Swaps and Debt Overhang

We analyze the impact of credit default swaps (CDSs) trading on firm investment, long-term debt financing, and valuation. In our model, the firm is endowed with a real option to initiate a project and enhance its future growth. Its creditors have access to CDS contracts that hedge them against default losses. We show that CDS protection increases the firm’s pledgable income: that is, the maximum amount of debt it can raise. However, at the same time CDS protection decreases asset growth and impedes project initiation. As a result, CDS trading could reduce firm value, and the negative effects are stronger when the firm is riskier, where shareholders have stronger bargaining power, and growth opportunities are less valuable. Using simulated cross-sections of firms, we find that CDS trading increases corporate default rates and deters investment. Altogether, CDS firms tend to have a lower firm value and more volatile equity returns than non-CDS firms. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

CDS Momentum: Slow-Moving Credit Ratings and Cross-Market Spillovers

Abstract This paper highlights the adverse consequences of sluggish credit rating updates in creating information efficiency distortions and investment anomalies. We first document significant credit default swap (CDS) return momentum yielding 7.1% per year. We further show that cross-market momentum strategies based on information in past CDS performance generates an alpha of 10.3% per year in stocks and 7.3% per year in bonds. These CDS momentum and cross-market effects are stronger among more liquid, informationally rich CDS contracts whose CDS spreads move in anticipation of important, yet slow-moving, credit rating changes. (JEL G12, G14) Received February 19, 2020; editorial decision July 10, 2020 by Editor Jeffrey Pontiff. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Policy Uncertainty, Bad News Disclosure, and Stock Price Crash Risk

This paper documents that policy uncertainty reduces future stock price crash risk. Our tests show that this negative relation is more pronounced among firms with more short-sale constraints, with no actively traded credit default swap contracts, or with higher firm-level political risks. The results from regressions adopting the instrumental variable approach and from a quasi-natural experiment suggest that the negative relation observed between policy uncertainty and stock price crash risk is unlikely to be driven by potential endogeneity. Additional tests show that this negative association is driven by firms’ decreased hoarding of bad news during periods of high policy uncertainty.

Sovereign credit default swaps and macroeconomic fundamentals

We provide evidence in favour of a significant non-linear, time-varying dependence between sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads and macroeconomic fundamentals for OECD countries. Macroeconomic conditions alone explain more than 80% of the out-of-sample variation in CDS spreads when non-linear random forest regressions are used. This is almost double the predictive performance of sparse and dense linear statistical learning methods. We test the coherence of the expected CDS spreads across different pure out-of-sample scenarios, e.g. training a random forest regression on EU countries and predicting CDS spreads for non-EU economies. The results suggest that non-linear machine learning methods enable “shadow” sovereign CDS pricing for countries and historical periods in which tradable sovereign CDS contracts are not available.