CDS Delivery Option: Better Pricing of Credit Default Swaps

10 The ABX Meltdown

On March 26, 2008, Bear Stearns notified its stockholders in writing of the immediate sale of almost 40 percent of the company's stock to JPMorgan. The eighty-five-year-old firm had been faced with a stark choice: either declare bankruptcy or sell to a rival at $2 per share. Just a year earlier, Bear Stearns's stock had reached an all-time high of $170. Credit derivatives traders can learn much from the downfall of Bear Stearns, the first collapse of a major broker since the disintegration of Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1990, particularly concerning important differences between over-the-counter and listed derivatives markets, ...