Estimate A Company’s CDS (Risk Indicator)

Read the whole instablog at Seeking Alpha: 

>>Ploutos recently published a very interesting article here at Seeking Alpha:

Credit Default Swap Spreads And S&P 500 Constituents

This article discusses an institutional topic, credit default swap spreads, in a way that hopefully connects with individual investors. Credit default swaps are insurance-like agreements where the seller of protection agrees to compensate the buyer of protection in the event of a default by the underlying company. In exchange, the seller of protection is paid quarterly premiums over the life of the contract. The standard contract is five years, and the spreads below will reference this tenor, but maturities are often quoted from 3 months to 10 years. The higher the premium paid, then the greater the likelihood of default by the underlying company as priced by an institutional marketplace.

The article goes on examining what CDS Spreads may mean for investors, why they are important while evaluating a business risk profile, and even why an increasing CDS Spread may be good news for shareholders, and bad news for bondholders, under special circumstances.

From Bloomberg, I can pull in credit default swap spreads on 288 of the 500 constituents.

Private investors, unfortunately, face a harder time when looking for CDS data.