Country Default Risk Rises Across the Board (Credit Default Swaps for countries)

[Joanne98]

On November 7th, we highlighted the cost to insure against government default through sovereign CDS prices for 38 countries. Since then, default risk has risen for all but two of these countries (Lebanon and Argentina). Below we provide the current credit default swap prices for these countries, along with where they were trading one month ago and at the start of the year. As shown, Argentina, Venezuela, and Iceland have the highest default risk, with Russia not far behind. Germany, Japan, and France all have lower default risk than the US at the moment. It now costs $60 per year to insure against US default for the next five years. While this may not seem high, it was at $8 earlier in the year, and $36 one month ago.



Ireland, Austria, Greece, and the UK have seen default risk rise the most over the last month. All have risen close to or more than 100%. US default risk has risen the 8th most at 68%.




http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespoke/2008/12/country-default-risk-rises-across-the-board.html

NO. This isn't The Onion!