Saturday, November 28, 2009

Dubai Blues As Seen In CDS, It's All About Perception!

A cliche goes, 'what you see depends on where you stand'.

For many, this could be rephrased as 'what you see depends on what you are looking for'. In the behavioral aspects, this means looking to confirm a bias or selective perception. For the bears, the Dubai incident has served as a rallying cry for their much awaited deflation blow-up scenario.

The chart from Bespoke exhibits on the default risk as measured through the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) on a year to date basis for 39 nations.
For a clearer image press on the link.

According to Bespoke, "we highlight current credit default swap prices and the year-to-date change for the sovereign debt of 39 countries. As shown, default risk has declined for every country except Japan in 2009, including Dubai."[underscore mine]

What this means is that despite the present turmoil, default risk measures haven't reached or is quite distant [yet] from the magnitude as it had been at the start of the year.

So unless the succeeding events deteriorate more, this volatility may be a head fake signal more than a genuine inflection point.

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