The EU ban on uncovered sovereign credit default swaps: assessing impacts on liquidity, volatility and price discovery

This article addresses the effects of the prohibition against naked CDS buying implemented by the European Union in November 2012. Three aspects of market quality are analyzed: liquidity, volatility, and price informativeness. Overall, our results suggest that the ban produced negative effects on liquidity and price informativeness. First, we find that in territories within the scope of the EU regulation, the bid–ask spreads on sovereign CDS contracts rose after the ban, but fell for countries outside its bounds. Open interest declined for both groups of CDS reference entities in our sample, but significantly more in the constraint group. Price delay increased more prominently for countries affected by the ban, whereas price precision decreased for these countries while increasing for CDSs written on other sovereign reference entities. Most notably, our findings indicate that hese negative effects were more pronounced amid reference entities exhibiting lower credit risk. With respect to volatility, the evidence suggests that the ban was successful in stabilizing the CDS market in that volatility decreased, particularly for contracts written on riskier CDS entities.

No evidence for association of ataxia-telangiectasia mutated gene T2119C and C3161G amino acid substitution variants with risk of breast cancer

Background There is evidence that certain mutations in the double-strand break repair pathway ataxia-telangiectasia mutated gene act in a dominant-negative manner to increase the risk of breast cancer. There are also some reports to suggest that the amino acid substitution variants T2119C Ser707Pro and C3161G Pro1054Arg may be associated with breast cancer risk. We investigate the breast cancer risk associated with these two nonconservative amino acid substitution variants using a large Australian population-based case–control study. Methods The polymorphisms were genotyped in more than 1300 cases and 600 controls using 5' exonuclease assays. Case–control analyses and genotype distributions were compared by logistic regression. Results The 2119C variant was rare, occurring at frequencies of 1.4 and 1.3% in cases and controls, respectively (P = 0.8). There was no difference in genotype distribution between cases and controls (P = 0.8), and the TC genotype was not associated with increased risk of breast cancer (adjusted odds ratio = 1.08, 95% confidence interval = 0.59–1.97, P = 0.8). Similarly, the 3161G variant was no more common in cases than in controls (2.9% versus 2.2%, P = 0.2), there was no difference in genotype distribution between cases and controls (P = 0.1), and the CG genotype was not associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (adjusted odds ratio = 1.30, 95% confidence interval = 0.85–1.98, P = 0.2). This lack of evidence for an association persisted within groups defined by the family history of breast cancer or by age. Conclusion The 2119C and 3161G amino acid substitution variants are not associated with moderate or high risks of breast cancer in Australian women.