Risk magazine/Technical paper
Swap vega in BGM: pitfalls and alternatives
Raoul Pietersz and Antoon PelsserPractitioners who are developing the Libor BGM model for risk management of a swap-based interest rate derivative be warned: for certain volatility functions the estimate of swap vega may be poor. This may occur for time…
Corridor variance swaps
This article studies a recent variation of a variance swap called a corridor variance swap (CVS). For this swap, returns are not counted in the realised variance calculation if the reference index level is outside some specified corridor. CVSs allow…
What’s a basket worth?
Peter Laurence and Tai-Ho Wang take a significant step in the valuation of basket options with positive and fixed weights. These model all index options, price, cap or equal weighted. Departing from the usual Black-Scholes framework, the authors provide…
Bringing credit portfolio modelling to maturity
Michael Barco shows how to perform mark-to-market credit portfolio modelling by extending the well-known saddle-point technique, introducing spread and recovery rate volatility. He then tests his results on a fictitious portfolio, showing how asset…
Calculating transfer risk using Monte Carlo
Marco van der Burgt constructs a model of emerging market transfer risk based on a country’s foreign exchange reserves that is combined with facility-dependent risk factors that determine counterparty exposure in the event of a moratorium. He then…
All your hedges in one basket
Leif Andersen, Jakob Sidenius and Susanta Basu present new techniques for single-tranche CDO sensitivity and hedge ratio calculations. Using factorisation of the copula correlation matrix, discretisation of the conditional loss distribution followed by a…
Using the grouped t-copula
Student-t copula models are popular, but can be over-simplistic when used to describe credit portfolios where the risk factors are numerous or dissimilar. Here, Stéphane Daul, Enrico De Giorgi, Filip Lindskog and Alexander McNeil construct a new,…
Pricing exotics under the smile
Masterclass – with JP Morgan
Benchmarking asset correlations
Basel II stipulates that the asset correlation to be used in calibration of obligor risk weights is 20%. Here, Alfred Hamerle, Thilo Liebig and Daniel Rösch use a parametric model to empirically obtain asset correlations from a large database of…
Pay attention to interest
Masterclass – with JP Morgan
Modelling venture capital funds
Modelling venture capital funds is a challenge and has become more important due to recentand upcoming securitisation deals, the need for efficient portfolio management, and Basel II.Here, Thomas Meyer and Tom Weidig summarise the issues both industry…
Crossing the frontier
Portfolio risk management
Selling risk at a premium
Option strategies
Hedging using forward rate bias
Foreign exchange
Insurance optional
Asset/liability management
VAR for fund managers
Investment management
Collateral damage
Credit risk
Analysing counterparty risk
In an attempt to improve on existing regulatory approaches to derivatives counterparty creditrisk, Eduardo Canabarro, Evan Picoult and Tom Wilde present a new method based on expectedpositive exposure (EPE). Using a one-factor conditional independence…
VAR: history or simulation?
Greg Lambadiaris, Louiza Papadopoulou, George Skiadopoulos and Yiannis Zoulis assess theperformance of historical and Monte Carlo simulation in calculating VAR, using data from theGreek stock and bond market. They find that while historical simulation…
Ultimate recoveries
Measuring recovery using the ultimate rate observed at emergence from bankruptcy may be conceptually desirable, but modelling it is difficult. Craig Friedman and Sven Sandow tackle the problem by maximising the creditor’s utility function, constructed…
Probing granularity
Basel II
A false sense of security
Credit portfolio models often assume that recovery rates are independent of defaultprobabilities. Here, Jon Frye presents empirical evidence showing that such assumptions arewrong. Using US historical default data, he shows that not only are recovery…
Unexpected recovery risk
For credit portfolio managers, the priority is to properly incorporate recovery rates into existing models. Here, Michael Pykhtin improves upon earlier approaches, allowing recovery rates to depend on the idiosyncratic part of a borrower’s asset return,…