The conditional stock market response to banks' distressed asset sales on CDS availability

This paper analyzes the stock market feedback on bank announcements of non-performing loan (NPL) sales, conditional on whether credit default swaps (CDS) are traded on the vendor bank's debt or not. Using a sample of 259 NPL sale announcements from 2012-2018, we find that NPL sales are related to positive abnormal stock returns if there is no CDS trading on the vendor bank's debt. In contrast, if a CDS on the bank's debt is outstanding, we find a negative stock market reaction. Similarly, we provide evidence that the positive market reaction is muted for banks that are considered too-big-to-fail. While the regulator currently strengthens NPL sales, our results provide evidence that CDS trading reassigns banks' risk exposure.