but you will be able to trade these soon: http://www.cme.com/files/creditevent_contractspecs.pdf Not precisely holdable cds.. but derivative of the overall market.
CDS is an OTC [ over the counter ] traded instrument. The typical trade size in a cds trade done OTC is 10MM. It's *not* for the individual investor [ quite frankly, some of the idiots i've seen at some of the big banks calling our desk shouldn't be trading them either ].. -c
I've only read about them - so it seems you may know more, but don't they function as typically a binary put option to corporate bonds? Is that 10mm = total cost of the CDS? Or is that just the notional portion that the CDS insures? What is the typical $$ amount value of smallest increment CDS?