Courtesy of Tyler Durden
According to DTCC, BP net notional CDS has hit another weekly record, coming in at $1.794 billion on 2,590 contracts as of June 18. This is a change from past week’s $1.677 billion net notional outstanding, and 2,072 contracts: an increase of $117 million in net notional derisking as an increasing number of bets on BP’s bankruptcy are made. Another very popular name, Anadarko, came in at $1.630 billion net with 3,051 contracts: the exact same notional as the prior week (which however saw 2,877 contracts outstanding). In other words, even as traders derisked in BP, they were flat in Anadarko, implying that a short risk BP – long risk APC trade was not being actively put on in the past week, contrary to media reports of this being a prevalent pair trade. Instead speculators took on unhedged short risk exclusively in BP. Alternatively, we could see accelerated derisking in APC soon as the long risk leg of a possible BP-APC pair trade catches up with FV.