We develop intuitive expressions for the spread between a forwardcontract and a similar futures contract taking into account the pos-sibility of counterparty default. We evaluate these expressions nu-merically and show that the forward-futures spread is significant forrealistic parameter...

Most derivative contracts are traded over-the-counter, i.e., bilaterally between two counterparties. Recently, clearing services have become available that allow to transfer over-the-counter derivatives to a central counterparty (clearing house). We develop a framework to determine the effects...