October 21st is Pay Day → Washingtons Blog
October 21st is Pay Day - Washingtons Blog

Thursday, October 16, 2008

October 21st is Pay Day

October 10th was "D-Day", where D stands for "derivatives". That was the day that an auction for Lehman's $400 billion dollars worth of credit default swaps determined that sellers of swaps would have to pay out 91.375 cents on the dollar.

October 21st is "Pay Day", when those liabilities actually have to be paid by the counterparties to Lehman's CDS.

The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation- one of the main companies which handles processing and payments of CDS - has estimated the total Lehman CDS payout at only $6 billion dollars.

However, a finance & banking analyst at RGE Monitor says that the real payout would, in fact, be much closer to $360 billion dollars, and certainly more than $200 billion dollars.

As leading economist and RGE Monitor writer Nouriel Roubini says:

"After AIG, monolines and hedge funds are likely to scramble to raise cash for Lehman settlement on October 21, while banks enjoy access to Fed liquidity. The notional payout is likely to amount to $360bn (91% of $400bn). AIG received $85bn + $37bn already to respond to immediate CDS margin calls after Lehman's default, 10 dealer banks opened a $70bn liquidity pool to accomodate novations of contracts with new counterparties--> hedge funds and monolines, insurers, SPV are likely to owe the remaining $50bn or so by October 21."

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