The Astonishing $600 Trillion Interest-Rate Derivatives Market

A post from April 21, 2010 on Washington’s Blog calls derivatives “the world’s largest market, dwarfing the size of the bond market and world’s real economy” and says that the derivatives market “is currently at around $600 trillion or so (in gross nominal value).” — See “Are Interest Rate Derivatives a Ticking Time Bomb?”

In contrast, Washington says that the worldwide bond market in 2009 was $82.2 trillion and the world economy was $58.07 trillion.

The most popular derivative, he says, are interest rate derivatives, in which “the underlying asset is the right to pay or receive a notional amount of money at a given interest rate,” according to the Wikipedia definition of interest rate derivative.

Washington quotes various economists to demonstrate why such derivatives have the potential to seriously destabilize the world economy (which we all know is so solid right now). He includes a long quote from portfolio manager Doug Noland, who compares interest rate derivatives with the so-called “portfolio insurance” that played a role in the stock-market crash of 1987.

One proponent of portfolio insurance is cited as making this breathtaking statement in 1985:

[I]t doesn’t matter that formal insurance policies are not available. The mathematics of finance provide the answer…The bottom line is that financial catastrophes can be avoided at a relatively insignificant cost.

About interest rate derivatives,Washington believes:

[N]o one – even the people that design, sell or write about the various interest rate derivatives – really knows how much of a danger they do or don’t pose to the overall economy. In addition to all of the other complexities of the instruments, the very size of the market is unprecedented.

AB — 22 April 2010