Thursday, February 26, 2009

Pepsi and IBM are Now More Creditworthy than the U.S. Government

Agora Financial's Rude Awakening notes that the U.S. Government is now considered less credit-worthy than Pepsi or IBM by the credit default swap market:

As the nearby chart indicates, the price of insuring Treasury debt against default now costs more than the price of insuring the debt of almost any AA or A+ rated company in the country. In other words, the Treasury is not quite as AAA as it should be, according to the buyers of credit default swaps.

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But fear not, CDS on Treasury debt remains well below the price of comparable CDS on Bulgarian, Argentinean and Latvian debt.***

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Of course, this might have a little to do with it:




















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