Back in 2008, investors and journalists obsessively tracked the price of credit default swaps, derivatives contracts that investors use to insure themselves against default.
As the financial crisis unfolded, CDS prices were a financial canary in the coal mine. When it became more expensive to insure a bank bond against default, that signalled severe trouble at the bank. Thankfully, this ghoulish game has ceased: most banks are so much better capitalised that their CDS prices are now boringly stable.
But a new CDS signal is emerging that is worth noting. Not because the trend itself has systemic implications, but because of what it suggests about what is happening to ailing companies.
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