Credit default swaps, potentially the next domino to fall in the ongoing financial crisis, are the debt equivalent of naked shorts on stocks, according to the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In prepared testimony that he will deliver before the Senate Banking Committee this morning, SEC chairman Christopher Cox equated the sale of the unregulated bond derivatives with naked short selling and called on Congress to give his agency authority to regulate the derivatives. "Economically, a CDS buyer is tantamount to a short seller of the bond underlying the CDS," said Cox. "Whereas a person who owns a...