Fixed Income Flashcards
Convenience yield
Benefit of holding the physical commodity (not through a future)
Super classes of assets
- Capital assets
- Store of value assets
- Consumable or transferable assets (C/T)
- Futures contract size
- Tick
- Point value
- Smallest change in price
- Backwardation
- Contango
- Futures prices are lower than the spot price
- Futures prices are higher than the spot price
Total return on futures investments
= spot return + roll return + collateral return
Excess return
= spot return + roll return
Spot curve
Annualized return on a risk-free zero coupon bond with a single payment of principal at maturity
Forward price P(T* + T)
P(T* + T) = P(T*) F(T*, T)
- T* = number of years before the initiation of the contract
- T = tenor of the contract
- When the spot curve is upward sloping
- When the spot curve is downward sloping
- f(T*, T) > r(T* + T), r(T* + T) > r(T*)
- f(T*, T) < r(T* + T), r(T* + T) < r(T*)
Par curve
YTM on a risk-free coupon-paying bond priced at par
Fixed-rate leg of an interest swap
Swap rate
- Discount factor
- Rate associated with the previous discount factor
- 0.95/1.00 = 0.95
- [1/0.95] - 1 = 0.05263
- s(T)
- P(T)
- r(T)
- Swap rate a time T
- Discount factor with maturity T
- Spot rate at time T (YTM)
“On-the-run” government security
The most recently issued security
Gilts
UK government bonds
The Z-spread, ZSPRD
Spread over the default-free spot curve
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The constant basis point spread that would need to be added to the implied spot yield curve so that the discounted cash flows of a bond are equal to its current market price
The Interpolated Spread - I-spread - ISPRD of a bond
Difference between its yield to maturity and the linearly interpolated yield for the same maturity on an appropriate reference yield curve
The pure expectations or unbiased expectations theory
The forward rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate
Local expectations theory
A form of the pure expectations theory that suggests that the returns on bonds of different maturities will be the same over a short-term investment horizon
Liquidity preference theory
A premium exist for long-term securities
Segmented markets theory
The yield curve is influenced by the preferences of lenders and borrowers
The preferred habitat theory
Agents and institutions will accept additional risk in return for additional expected returns
Riding the yield curve
Buying bonds with maturities longer than the investment horizon
TED spread
Difference between the interest rates on interbank loans and on short-term U.S. government debt (“T-bills”). TED is an acronym formed from T-Bill and ED, the ticker symbol for the Eurodollar futures contract.
- Spot curve - S
- Par curve (yield curve) - Y
- Forward curve - F
- The spot curve gives a yield that is used to discount a single cash flow at a given maturity
- The par curve is the single discount rate that you would use to discount all of the bond’s cash flows to get today’s market price
- The forward curve is similar to the spot curve (from which it is derived) in that it discounts a single payment. The difference is that it doesn’t discount that payment back to today; instead, it discounts it back one period
Arbitrage-free value of a bond
Present value of its cash flows discounted at the spot rate
Bootstrapping
Because the T-bills offered by the government are not available for every time period, the bootstrapping method is used to fill in the missing figures in order to derive the yield curve
Vanilla bond
Straight option-free bond
- European-style callable bond
- American-style callable bond
- Bermudan-style callable bond
- Can be called on a single date after the lock-up period
- Can be called continuously after the lock-up period
- Can be called on a predetermined schedule after the lock-up period
Putable bonds
Either European or Bermudan
OAS on a zero volatility bond
Equals the Z-spread on an option-free bond
Option-adjusted-spread (OAS)
The option-adjusted spread (OAS) is the measurement of the spread of a fixed-income security rate and the risk-free rate of return, which is adjusted to take into account an embedded option
Effect of changes in volatility on an option-free bond
An option-free bond is not affected by changes in yield volatility
- High OAS
- Low OAS
- Likely underpriced
- Likely overpriced
Key rate duration
Sensitivity of a bond’s price to changes in specific maturities on the benchmark curve
Convexity of callable and putable bonds
- A putable bond always has a positive convexity
- A callable bond’s convexity turns negative when the call option is near the money
Set in arrears on floaters
The coupon rate is set at the beginning of the coupon period and the coupon is paid at the end
Ratchet bonds
At every coupon reset, the rate can only go down - also contain a contingent put allowing the investors to put the bond back to the issuer at par when the coupon is reset
Forced conversion
Forces investors to convert their bonds into shares when the underlying share price increases above the conversion price
- Conversion value
- Conversion price
- Conversion value = underlying share price x conversion ratio
- Conversion price = par price of the bond / conversion ratio
- Market conversion premium per share
- Market conversion price
- Premium over straight value
- Market conversion premium per share = Market conversion price – Underlying share price
- Market conversion price = Convertible bond price / Conversion ratio
- Premium over straight value = (Convertible bond price / Straight value) − 1
The five Cs of credit
- Character
- Capacity
- Capital
- Collateral
- Conditions