Academic

The Road to CDS Transparency Continues
As a follow up to recent posts regarding credit default swaps (CDSs), note that on November 14, 2008, the SEC issued a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Reserve Board and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission dealing with central counterparties...

SEC Approves Exemptions Allowing Chicago Mercantile Exchange to Operate as Central Counterparty for Credit Default Swaps
News release: "he Securities and Exchange Commission took further action to help increase the transparency of credit default swaps by...

SEC Takes Decisive Action toward Credit Default Swap Regulation
As Carol Straw reported here two weeks ago, Senator Tom Harkin recently introduced a bill that would revise the regulation of credit default swaps (?CDSs?). Recall that CDSs act as insurance policies for corporations on the defaults of bonds and...

Regulators push for disclosure of bespoke CDS
Regulators want to get a peak at the world of non-standard CDSs:The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission want information about credit-default swaps that don't conform to standard terms to be disclosed in a central warehouse that would make sure all trades get recorded, said the person, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private...

Thornburg Mortgage Announces Additional Forbearance Agreements, Sale of Its Remaining Assets And Discontinuance of Operations
As a result of the expected and realized deficiency claims, the Company has also agreed to cooperate with the Counterparties to transfer the Company's mortgage servicing rights, which were granted to the Counterparties as security for the Company's obligations to the Counterparties under their respective financing agreements.

Letting AIG fail
Making counterparties on the company's derivative deals take a haircut (as would happen in a failure) would not have to mean leaving policyholders without insurance (the conventional insurance divisions are solvent and under no obligation to the derivative counterparties)...

President's Working Group on Financial Markets Announces Initiatives to Strengthen OTC Derivatives Oversight and Infrastructure
News release: "Initiatives announced today include the development of credit default swap central counterparties, some of which will commence operations...

False Abuse Accusations
Boothbay Harbor Central School District pays shop teacher $320,000 defamation settlement.