Buying CDS or Shorting Sovereign Debt as a Retail Investor
First off, apologies if this is the wrong section for this question (the asset management forum doesn't get as many views so figured I'd start here first since traders may know the answer)... I've been a member for a few years, but only posted a couple times... mods, please move if appropriate.
As far as the topic goes, I'm trying to find a vehicle for getting exposure to shorting sovereign debt at the retail level. I know you can short powershare bond futures and buy levered short ETNs, but I'm really looking for something that makes sense for a longer term (5 or 10-years), ideally where you pay an annual premium and the price rises/falls on a frequent basis, as opposed to a binary in-the-money (100) or out-of-the-money (0) value at period end/contract termination.
I know a lot of institutional investors have recently moved away from CDS and instead shorted sovereign bonds since there is concern government regulators might intervene to prevent the expected mess that comes with a default-triggering event. Hopefully there is a product that looks and smells like CDS at the retail level, that is reasonably liquid and not binary...
Any thoughts? If something like this doesn't exist, what would be the best (and most cost efficient) way to get that type of long-term exposure?





You have bond futures, but
You have bond futures, but they only have decent liquidity for the important ones (mainly UST, Gilt, Bund 2y 5y 10y) and the capital required is big (depends on the contract, but 100k euros is the ballpark) so not really a retail option.
You could try some etfs or futures on FI indices.