Credit Default Swap - CDS

  

You’re most likely here because a professor assigned you a report on the 2008 Financial Crisis. You found yourself reading about the credit crisis, and ended up clicking on credit default swaps for any clue on what the heck these things actually are. It was bound to happen.

So...let’s try to keep it simple.

You loan $1,000 to a guy you met at a bar (maybe not a 100% sober decision) with a high interest rate. Now you’re regretting the decision. So you tell the bartender that you’re willing to pay him $20 a month to guarantee the loan in the event that the person defaults. You'll pay $20 a month for a specified period of time, and he will pay off the loan to you in the event that the barfly defaults.

That's the basis of a credit default swap. It’s a form of insurance.

During the financial crisis, companies that bundled mortgages purchased credit default swaps from companies to insure those loans. There was just one problem. One company, AIG, insured an overwhelming amount of these swaps in order to collect the premiums. When the entire housing market sunk and millions of Americans failed to pay their loans, an incredible number of mortgages went into default. As a result, all of the financial companies that had purchased insurance in the form of CDS were making claims all at the same time. This resulted in a $182 billion bailout from the U.S. government for the insurance company.

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Finance: What are Credit Scores and Wort...21 Views

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Finance allah shmoop What are credit scores and credit worthiness

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Remember that scene from wayne's world Alice cooper lets him

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backstage They bow and chant Where'd i worthy We're not

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worthy Well basically just swap one of the greatest rock

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and roll singers with your local banker Yeah well as

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much as you'd rather hang out with alice cooper this

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nerdy guy here is wet A more important to your

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credit That long hair thing worked when he was in

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his twenties And not so much now I guess Anyway

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if you have a bank account or a credit card

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or are generally tapped into the banking and credit system

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of the world in any way shape or form you

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have a credit score You might not know it But

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you do Where does that score come from And yeah

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It's known as yours Fico score While fico stands for

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fair isaac corporation that's a publicly traded company and that's

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what they do they provide credit scores and they try

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to be fair like isaac Anyway those scores were requested

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and released through one of the big three credit bureaus

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Equifax experian in trans union Oh my These guys give

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you a number That kind of thing finds your reliability

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in making payments to banks or other lending institutions who

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might loan you dough Well why would you care home

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Because that number you get directly affect the price you

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pay to rent money The worst Your credit score the

01:28

higher your rent have will likely be in who likes

01:31

to pay high rent especially when it comes to renting

01:33

money Well the worst fico score is a zero and

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were wondering what you'd need to have done Teo get

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that like three bankruptcies in a bank robbery Maybe Well

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we want to meet the third guy who loaned you

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money at that point Anyway the bill gates perfect score

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is an eight Fifty on such a show off And

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here are roughly the breakdowns for how banks think of

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credit Score c it's all color coded here with the

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red yellow and green Well the goal here in having

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a score is to determine your reliability in paying back

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a given loan Yes the amount you're borrowing also matters

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But to speed up the initial evaluation of you is

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a borrower Wealthy credit score is applied to you and

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it lets banks quickly come to a yes or no

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or ah maybe decision Yeah quickly that credit score thing

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helps and if the answers and no well then you

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can always backpack across the country and stay in youth

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hostels So yeah you don't want to be murdered by

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a deranged dutch businessman and we suggest you stay current

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on your us visa payments and have a high credit 00:02:30.173 --> [endTime] score Be creditworthy because you are worthy Hope yellow

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