I'll Sell You All the CDS on Citi, Suckers

CDS spread has gotten an undeserved attention as some sort of prophetic leading indicator during this crisis. Is there something special about CDS buyers and sellers that make CDS spreads more insightful than anything else? NO, of course not.

If you think the 40 bps CDS premium on US is ridiculous (for up to 5 years anyway), then I have a surprise for you. Citi CDS was going for 470 bps last Friday. This is close to imminent default range. It's much worse than the usual junk credit.

All the bad news and gloomy speculations about Citi notwithstanding, the simple fact is that

1. Citi deposits will not be endangered. This is hugely political. Governments around the world cannot afford to let it happen, or else they'd be stoned to death by the revolution.

2. Citi bonds will not default. Although Paulson maintains that he didn't think the decision to let Lehman go down was a mistake, everybody knows (Paulson included) it was a critical mistake in transforming a financial crisis into a full-blown global, economic crisis. I think we've learned the lesson by now. The world cannot deal with another CDS settlement of a big company. Not Citi, not GM.

Beyond the above two points, everything else is in play, including wiping out equity.

But, before you get too excited about the parallel between Citi and Bear/Lehamn/AIG, think about the following:

1. Unlike the situation weeks before Bear/Lehman, even for weeks for Morgan Stanley, no bank is stopping trading with Citi. Remember, some banks stopped trading with each of them WEEKS before the trouble became public. It's a very easy decision for them to make, with negligible downside compared to the risk IF they seriously think there's a real risk. But no, nobody stopped trading with Citi, as of the past Friday.

2. Unlike Bear/Lehman/MS, Citi is a real bank with real deposit base. I don't know about the off-balance sheet toxic asset in Citi that everybody suddenly seems to know. But the crucial difference is that Citi is not an investment bank. As long as you believe humanity is not quite stupid enough to march off the cliff, Citi will survive - with pain, maybe, but they will survive.

I think it's quite clear by now that the emerging market crisis of last month is mostly aritificial and technical. They are vulnerable for sure. But there's no structural deficiency in BRIC world in the same order of magnitude as in the developed world. China will be hurt by decrease in demand in goods. India will be hurt by decreasing demand in offshoring. Russia will be hurt by slumping oil price. Brazil will be hurt by slumping oil price (ethenol) and FDI. But none of them is nearly as severe as the chronical, structural deficiencies of future-mortgaging and over-consumption in the developed world. As demonstrated by the 4 trillion Yuan plan announced by Beijing, they are at a point where they CAN create enough demand domestically to get through a temporary glut.

What does this have to do with Citi? My point is the world, not just the US government, will not allow Citi to go down. The US government may not have enough credibility, with Paulson changing his mind every week. But the world ganged up together is a credible threat to the shorts.

And, dare I say, with its truly global franchise, Citi is in a better position to benifit from emerging markets while most other banks, much more concentrated in US and Europe, are exposed to the long struggle ahead of us in the develped world.

If you want to say Citi is too big to manage, that's fine. But it still does not negate the fact that Citi is truly too big to fail -- not just to US, but to the world.

I don't know what will happen to Citi stock. But if you want to buy Citi CDS, I can sell you as much as you want.