Credit default swaps are a financial derivative used to offset the risk of lending money. These financial tools are somewhat infamous in the modern era due to their role in the Great Recession.

Credit default swaps (CDSs) provide protection for investors in the event that the borrower defaults on their debt or loan. They can play a pivotal part in financial and investment industries, as they ...

It’s usually not a good sign when obscure financial instruments are making headlines. And that’s the case now as the political standoff over the U.S. government’s debt ceiling puts credit-default ...

As Bear Stearns careened toward its eventual fire sale to JPMorgan Chase last weekend, the cost of protecting its debt, through an instrument called a credit default swap, began to rise rapidly as ...

Prior to the financial crisis, few outside of Wall Street knew what Credit Default Swaps (CDS) were. But AIG's collapse and subsequent bailout made the once-obscure derivatives famous: the insurer ...

Learn how credit default insurance protects against borrower default risks through credit derivatives like swaps, helping investors manage credit exposure efficiently.

Immediately after the administration announced last week that it would be sending legislation to Congress to regulate derivatives, “experts” in the media started repeating the erroneous statements ...

Vultures, rats and maggots are often the focus of disgust, less because of anything for which they can be blamed, and more because of the conditions with which they are associated. Death, disease and ...

Felix Salmon says that credit default swaps are just like bonds. Charles Davi says they are just like futures and forwards (actually, they are most like options), which are derivatives that provide ...

A credit default swap is basically a bet on whether a company will default on its debt. When the company defaults, people who sold CDS on that company generally have to pay money to people who bought ...

When crisis strikes, humans naturally seek a simple explanation. In turn, simple explanations require simple causes. Until recently, sub-prime mortgages were assigned much of the blame for the Panic ...

Is the “Perfect Storm” Metaphor Appropriate for the Economic Crisis? “The metaphor of the perfect storm is inapt. The captain’s action does not influence the height of the waves. Fed Chairman Bernanke ...