The first inkling of how Big the Big Shitpile really is. Bloomberg:

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. will publish details of the top 1,000 credit-default swaps today, bowing to regulatory pressure for more transparency in the $47 trillion market. ["Top" by what metric?]

The weekly data the DTCC will start publishing on its Web site after 5 p.m. New York time today will show how much is traded on both individual companies and on benchmark indexes linked to groups of companies. Starting next week, it also will post trading volumes during the previous week.

The data from the DTCC, which operates a central registry, will for the first time offer a clearer picture of the amount wagered on the creditworthiness of the world's companies and governments.

On the bright side:

The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. contributed to a decline in financial markets last month because no one knew how many contracts were outstanding on the securities firm, or who had held them. Estimates ranged as high as $400 billion, though the actual amount turned out to be $72 billion, the DTCC said.

After subtracting redundant trades, only $5.2 billion had to actually change hands, DTCC said last month in what was its first release of data from the warehouse.

It really is just like playing the ponies, isn't it? They all made side bets with each other. It's just that nobody wanted to be the first to unwind it all.

Even the size of the market is up for debate. ISDA [International Swaps and Derivatives Association] says more than $47 trillion of contracts are outstanding, while the DTCC puts the figure closer to $35 trillion.

Oh, is that all?

``The credit derivatives market is in need of PR to stop the flow of misinformation we continually hear,'' said Tim Backshall, chief strategist at Credit Derivatives Research LLC in Walnut Creek, California. The DTCC data ``should help,'' he said.

Got it. It's meta. So, it took them what, a year, to figure out all they had was a PR problem? Somehow, I can't see this. And if the release of the data is seen as PR, then it's not likely to be very good PR at all, eh? Does the possession incredible wealth and power make you stupid?

The DTCC, which matches and confirms 90 percent of electronic trades from the biggest dealers in the market, will list the companies and countries linked to the most credit- default swaps, including both the gross amount and a net figure that excludes offsetting trades between two parties.

And all this is done at 5:00 on election day? Isn't that timing just a little odd? What was the hold up on doing it before? They couldn't get SQL to write a report from the central registry? The kuroko's black costumes hadn't come back from the cleaners?

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox called for authority to regulate the credit swaps market, saying the lack of disclosure and the web of connections between dealers in the market threatened the stability of the financial system. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has spent the last three years pushing dealers to curb risks in the credit swaps market, last week said it welcomed the DTCC's disclosure.

``We need transparency,'' said U.S. Representative Bob Etheridge, a Democrat from North Carolina who heads the subcommittee that oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is also seeking authority to regulate the market. ``Sunlight has a way of purifying a lot of things and sanitizing them, and that's why I think transparency is so critical in this area. You're dealing in substantial dollars.''

Well, sunlight's great, but this time of year the sun's starting to set by 5:00....

``The risk to the market from these instruments would be far less if investors had the benefit of basic disclosures,'' Cox wrote in an opinion column today in the Washington Post, in which he repeated his call for authority to regulate the market. ``The lack of transparency around credit-default swaps played a role in the collapse of AIG and contributed to the crisis of confidence that has enveloped other financial institutions.''

What's the problem, here? They got away clean with our trillion, so what's not to like?

NOTE I've always loved synchronized swimming. Here's Cox's Op-Ed. Hilariously, he calls the market for credit default swaps a "notional market." Anyhow, think the government of national unity will take up this issue toot sweet? I'm guessing yes.