A credit default swap (CDS) is a contract that protects lenders from borrower default. Learn how a CDS works, why they’re ...

Investors are turning to products that pay out if companies go under to shield their portfolios from a potential bust in the ...

Trading in Oracle credit default swaps (CDS), which has exploded in the last year and are near their most expensive on record, tell a less upbeat story than its shares. Essentially derivatives that ...

In her recent impassioned Senate speech against the repeal of the swaps push-out provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, Senator Elizabeth Warren argued that a vote for repeal was a vote, “…[to] let ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...