Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
During the financial crisis, we created an index that tracks credit default swap prices for the major banks and brokers across the world. This essentially measures default risk for the financial sector. After declining significantly for the past 9 months, the index has spiked in recent weeks to its highest level since last September. As shown below (click to enlarge), the downtrend line in the index has also been broken on the run-up as well. In just a couple weeks, the fear has picked up quite a bit.