Category Archives: iceland

Icelandic CDS Datapoints of the Day

The CDS auctions for Iceland’s failed banks are all over now, and the results are up at creditfixings.com. Bank Inside Market Midpoint Open interest Final price Landsbanki senior 3.375 €454 million to sell 1.25 Landsbanki subordinated 1.375 €63 million to … Continue reading

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Landsbanki Debt Settles at 1 Cent on the Dollar

What happens to unsecured bondholders when a financial institution goes bust? A good place to start is to look at the settlement price in CDS auctions. Fannie and Freddie settled in the high 90s: yes, there was a credit event, … Continue reading

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Adventures in Icelandic Monetary Policy

What does it mean that Iceland has just raised interest rates by 600bp, after cutting them by 350bp a couple of weeks ago? I’m not talking about monetary policy here, I’m talking about what it means in practice. Central bank … Continue reading

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Germans Suffer from Exposure in Iceland

Iceland has three banks. Between them they have $61 billion in liabilities, or about 12 times Iceland’s GDP — which clearly makes it impossible for the Icelandic government to bail them out. But who lent Iceland’s banks so much money? … Continue reading

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Iceland’s Best-Laid Plan Falls Apart

Here’s how fluid things are: last week, Iceland nationalized Glitnir, the country’s third-largest bank. Today, it unnationalized Glitnir, putting it into receivership instead: clearly the bank’s liabilities were too large for the Icelandic government to take on. Yesterday, Iceland pegged … Continue reading

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The Iceland-Dow Connection

Josh has been watching the Icelandic krona: This morning, the ISK reached a nadir of 350 ISK to the EUR, and I was placing phone calls to travel agencies trying to book the cheapest holiday of my life. Then, suddenly … Continue reading

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