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The ISDA CDS Settlement Auction is A Hidden Goldmine for Cash-Rich Accounts
When I discussed the basis trade opportunity, the conclusion was that arbitrage in the secondary (and by extension primary) market exists due to significant dislocations in liquidity. Sure, one can argue that immediate culprits for the arbitrage have to do with counterparty risk and funding costs, which makes sense, but those are merely derivatives of the liquidity disconnects between different brokers, their accounts, and any permutations thereof.
- Millennium America, February 3
- Lyondell, February 3
- Equistar, February 3
- Sanitec, February 5
- British Vita, February 9
- Nortel, February 10
- Smurfit-Stone, TBD
- A few days before the auction ISDA prints the list of deliverable obligations that will be allowed to settle physically - many times these are most of the corporate bonds of an issuer, but in some very complex cases (Lehman and FNM/FRE most notably) only a certain percentage of bonds are selected.
- The day before the auction, ISDA publishes the full list of participating bidders which will serve as the clearing agents to make sure all offers are exhausted.
- On the day of the auction many things happen in rapid succession. The key items to keep track of are the submission of the amount of bonds one is willing to purchase and at what price, the determination of open interest (amount of bonds that have to be purchased in the auction by various dealers), and the final price, which Creditex posts at 2 pm on the auction date, which is also the close of the auction. It is important to understand that physical settlements are Dutch auctions: i.e. clearance occurs at the lowest price at which all net sell interest is absorbed. Therefore, a bidder does not stand to lose by placing a low ball bid as it may very well end up the critical one, and result in the final price.
Due to the significant residual overhang of protection sellers in the 2003-2007 period, most auctions end up with a net open sell interest. Let's take the case of Lehman:
After dealers submit preliminary inside bid indications, they are allowed to participate in the auction. The final bid price is based not on the inside bids but the actual limit orders (a combination of broker and customer orders) at which the Dutch auction clears.
The next important step is determining the Net Buy/Sell interest. As noted, most auctions are entered into with a net open sell interest due to excessive protection selling which is one of the main reason for the arbitrage. As presented, in the Lehman case, despite nearly $150 billion of defaulted unsecured debt, there was only $4.9 billion in net open interest (offered), proving all doomsayers of the CDS market wrong, as at its core it is a fundamentally very efficient market, regardless if it trades OTC or on an exchange.
Notable here is that the preponderance of bids are at ridiculously low levels, with the average of the total $132 billion notional in submitted bids (which is surprisingly close to the total amount of outstanding debt - perhaps dealers and accounts had assumed that as much as the total unsecured debt may be open to physical settlement) in the 2-3 cent range. Obviously many bidders were focused on the Dutch aspect of the auction, trying to aggressively lowball the market. As the final net sell interest was relatively low in comparison with the total bid interest, $4.9 Bn vs. $132 Bn, the clearing price was higher than the average. However, as mentioned above, JPM and Barclays, which likely had other motives in terms of procuring Lehman securities, alone accounted for $2.5 billion of the $4.9 billion in effective bids. Without these the final price would have had a 7 handle.
The key aspect of the ISDA auction, is that it significantly reprices the secondary market of the existing securities (which at least in theory is determined by fundamentals) based on an exercise in liquidity. It is feasible that with much larger open interest the ISDA auction may have cleared at 5, even 4. Why is this important? Because Lehmans' bonds in the days before the auction traded at markedly higher prices. As an example, let's take the 6.625% Notes due 1/2012, which in the three day prior to the auction closed with an average price of 12.5. (Chart below)
The liquidity part of the equation comes into play when one considers that fewer and fewer dealers and funds have lots of spare cash lying around to participate in these kinds of auctions. Once an account submits a formal bid (bid and notional), it is binding. Which is why in many of the upcoming ISDA auctions (Lyondell will likely be the most anticipated one) a buysider may make off like a bandit merely by submitting a large, substantially out of the money big which gets triggered when the Dutch auction doesn't find filling bids on the way down.
Admittedly, there are many more nuances to the physical settlement process (could discuss offline time permitting), but in a nutshell it is a great opportunity for still liquid accounts to purchase bonds in bankrupt entities at a significant discount to market values. If one chooses so, these may be flipped immediately in the open market which still trades substantially higher than the auction results (in Lehman's case on the day after the auction, the 6.625% bonds closed at 9.6% allowing for a 10% return in one day).
There are odd exceptions: the Fannie/Freddie physical settlement auction ended up in some surprising results, where due to technical considerations, the subs ended up with a higher clearing price than the seniors (there is good literature out on the net as to why this happened). Additionally the final auction Creditex document provides some very good insight into which broker/dealers may have liquidity constraints. The Lehman auction specifically demonstrated that Morgan Stanley is severely strapped for cash: despite their inside bid/offer levels of 8.25/10.25, they indicated firm limit orders only below 5 cents. The upcoming auction results will provide a rare glimpse into just how cash limited (or not) broker dealers are currently: I would keep an eye out on Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill and RBS. If the liquidity malaise is indeed spreading, funds will be able to take advantage of the brokers' troubles, and purchase securities at some very significant discounts to prevailing market rates.
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