Unhypnotized
Truth feeder
Shannon D. Harrington and Christine Harper
Bloomberg
Nov 29, 2010
Trading in credit-default swaps, Wall Street’s fastest-growing business before the credit crisis, has tumbled 40 to 60 percent from three years ago as banks prepare for new regulation of derivatives.
The declines estimated by executives at four of the biggest dealers of swaps means lower profits at firms that used to get as much as two-thirds of credit-market trading revenue from the derivatives. Moody’s Investors Service says pending rules may translate into job cuts of as much as 50 percent in groups that trade the contracts.
Investors are avoiding strategies that contributed to $1.82 trillion in writedowns and losses amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The net amount of credit swaps outstanding globally has fallen 20 percent from October 2008, the earliest figures disclosed by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. in New York.
“This was a major profit center for a lot of banks,” said Hal Scott, a Harvard Law School professor who also is director of the Committee on Capital Market Regulation, a nonpartisan group of academics and business executives that in May 2009 called for measures to reduce the risks derivatives pose. “It’s part of a bigger picture of reduced financial activity due to uncertainty and regulatory reform.”
Full article here
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Bloomberg
Nov 29, 2010
Trading in credit-default swaps, Wall Street’s fastest-growing business before the credit crisis, has tumbled 40 to 60 percent from three years ago as banks prepare for new regulation of derivatives.
The declines estimated by executives at four of the biggest dealers of swaps means lower profits at firms that used to get as much as two-thirds of credit-market trading revenue from the derivatives. Moody’s Investors Service says pending rules may translate into job cuts of as much as 50 percent in groups that trade the contracts.
Investors are avoiding strategies that contributed to $1.82 trillion in writedowns and losses amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The net amount of credit swaps outstanding globally has fallen 20 percent from October 2008, the earliest figures disclosed by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. in New York.
“This was a major profit center for a lot of banks,” said Hal Scott, a Harvard Law School professor who also is director of the Committee on Capital Market Regulation, a nonpartisan group of academics and business executives that in May 2009 called for measures to reduce the risks derivatives pose. “It’s part of a bigger picture of reduced financial activity due to uncertainty and regulatory reform.”
Full article here
Source...