SOVEREIGN CREDIT RISK and CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP SPREAD REFLECTIONS

The already experienced turbulence in the global financial system has focused the attentions of market participants to especially sovereign risk; its major determinants, systematic nature as well as its contagion potential. In this study, the direction of the analysis of the sovereign risk is within the framework of the credit default swap (cds) transactions. The sovereign risk can also be elaborated by using the bond spreads of the sovereign but the latter is also driven by factors other than the sovereign risk such as the interest rate movements, supply conditions, and liquidity. The already available economical and financial data provides invaluable opportunity to analyze the sovereign risk anticipation of the financial markets as it incorporates the valuation of cds in real crisis times of 2008 and 2009 and 2011-first half of 2012 as well as the before and after economic and financial data of the selected countries namely Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Korea, Greece and Spain. The relationship between the global financial variables and cds spreads reveals the fact that the risk appetite in the global financial market affects the credit risk perception and consequently cds spreads regardless of the employed indicator of the risk appetite. Specifically, it is also determined that domestic economic situation has significant effects on cds spreads (excluding Greece who experienced considerable turmoil in its economical and financial position), the local variables explain more than 75 percent of the cds spread level and this ratio increases to more than 80 percent when four emerging market countries are referred.