Credit Risk Measurement and Management Flashcards
Approaches to Fixed-Income Analysis
Fixed-income analysis can be divided into fundamental analysis and technical analysis
- Fundamental analysis explores many of the same issues that are undertaken when engaging in credit analysis for risk management purposes; that is, default risk.
- Technical analysis looks at market timing issues, which are affected by the risk appetite of institutional investors and market perception, as well as pricing patterns.
The 3 components of expected losses (EL)
- The probability of default (PD)
- The exposure amount (EA) of the loan at the time of default
- The loss rate (LR), that is, the fraction of the exposure amount that is lost in the event of default
Expected loss formula
Expected loss tree
Unexpected loss formula
Variance of the probability of default
Expected loss of a portfolio
Unexpected loss of a portfolio
Marginal contribution of asset i to the unexpected loss of a portfolio
Amount of economic capital needed
- Is the distance between the expected outcome and the unexpected (negative) outcome at a certain confidence level
- Cm = Capital Multiplier
Economic capital formula
The ‘company game’ according to Wilcox
- CN/U is the inverse of the return on equity ratio (ROE)
The no return point
- OF - Operational flow of funds (industrial margin plus net investments or divestments)
- D - Debt
The cumulated default rate expressed by the survival rates
Annual default rate formula
Example of Default Frequencies for a Given Rating Class
Chaining
- ‘Forward chaining’ starts with available data. Inference rules are used until a desired goal is reached.
- ‘Backward chaining’ starts with a list of goals. Then, working backwards, the system tries to find the path which allows it to achieve any of these goals.
Debt is equal to the payoff of risk-free debt minus the payoff of a put option on the firm with exercise price equal to the face value of the debt
- D(V, F, T, t) the value of debt
- V the value of the firm
- F the face value of the firm’s only zero-coupon debt maturing at T
- Pt(T) the price at t of a zero-coupon bond that pays $1 at T
- p(V, F, T, t) is the price of a put with exercise price F on firm value V
Vasicek model
- Is a model describing the evolution of interest rates
- rt is the current spot interest rate and Ɛt is a random shock.
- When λ is positive, the interest rate reverts to a long-run mean of k
- The Vasicek model incorporates mean reversion. The flexibility of the model also allows for risk premium, which enters into the model as constant drift or a drift that changes over time. In a model with mean reversion, shocks to the short rate affect shortterm rates more than longer-term rates and give rise to a downward-sloping term structure of volatility.
Vulnerable call option payoff
- V is the firm value of the call writer
- S is the stock price
- K is the exercise price
The Merton model
- The Merton model allows us to price risky debt by viewing it as risk-free debt minus a put written on the firm issuing the debt.
- The Merton model is practical mostly for simple capital structures with one debt issue that has no coupons.
Yield spread
Yield spread is the difference between the yield to maturity of a credit-risky bond and that of a benchmark government bond with the same or approximately the same maturity. The yield spread is used more often in price quotes than in fixed-income analysis.
i-spread
The i-(or interpolated) spread is the difference between the yield of the credit-risky bond and the linearly interpolated yield between the two benchmark government bonds or swap rates with maturities flanking that of the credit-risky bond. Like yield spread, it is used mainly for quoting purposes.
z-spread
The z-(or zero-coupon) spread builds on the zero-coupon Libor curve. It is generally defined as the spread that must be added to the Libor spot curve to arrive at the market price of the bond, but may also be measured relative to a government bond curve.