Great expectations

Where are they now?

Twenty years of dynamism in the over-the-counter derivatives market have yielded some astonishing successes. Red-hot competition has fuelled continuous innovation, and created in its wake a phalanx of new derivatives products. Many of them have made an active and visible contribution to the explosive growth of the derivatives market. Credit default swaps (CDSs), for example, came from humble beginnings to constitute a market worth $34.5 trillion in 2006, according to the International Swaps