Credit default swaps, especially for sovereign debt, are all the rage again in light of recent worries about default in Greece and other southern European countries.  Below we highlight the current CDS prices for the sovereign debt of a number of countries around the world.  For each country, we highlight where default risk stood at the start of the year as well.  As shown, Portugal has seen the biggest spike in default risk this year with a gain of 145.5%.  France ranks second at 87.7%, followed by Iceland, Germany, and Australia.  Surprisingly, CDS for US debt has spiked 49.4%, which is more than both Dubai and Greece.  (Why they even have CDS for the US and other large developed nations is a different story, and we're just highlighting where things stand.)  While France, Germany, Australia, and the US have all seen pretty big spikes in default risk this year, they still have the lowest default risk of all the countries highlighted.  Egypt, Lebanon, and Venezuela are the only countries that have seen default risk decline so far in 2010.

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