Various Flashcards
Define a payer and receiver IRS
In a IRS the payer is the party who wants to pay fixed interest rate and receive floating rate of interest. You do not buy or sell an IRA, you pay or receive (fixed).
What is difference between payment frequency and fixing frequency?
Payment frequency is how often interest is paid
And
Fixing frequency is how often the interest rate is reset (for an IRS the floating rate)
Why do we have day count conventions
To convert periods into year fractions when calculating interest rate payments
What are the use of rolling conventions, eg modified forward
If an event is scheduled to take place on a non-business day it dictates how to adjust this date to a business day
Define the modified forward rolling convention
If the payment date on a swap does not fall on a banking day, the modified following date will be the next banking day, except if the next extends into a new month
The start date if non-business is not adjusted
How to use the actual 360 day count convention?
= (end date - start date) / 360
= your year fraction to calculate interest
What is a spot trade
Two business days after the trading date
T+2 settlement
At what time are floating rates indexed? Think floating loans, floating bonds or the floating leg in an IRS
The floating rate is fixed at the start of each interest period and paid out at the end of the period
What day count convention is standard for (1) money market (2) danish bond market (3) repo transactions (4)
(1) Act360
(2) 30/360 for Fixed, Act360 for float
(3) act360 for danish bonds
More here
What are the traditionel curves to combine for a swap curve calibration? And what does no perfect overlapping mean?
Usually a cash curve with money market rates, a FRA curve with tenors between 1x7 and 9x15 and a swap curve from 2yrs and up to 30 yrs
What is the difference between a FRA and a IRS ?
A payer FRA (purchased contract) is similar to a payer IRS where you pay fixed and receives floating, i.e. bets on higher interest rates (since a lower deposit rate is better when interest rates increases).
However FRA only trade with short tenors of up to one year and IRS longer tenors (between 1-30 yrs).
What is the mid price used for?
Used as a reference and to evaluate P&L (whereas the bid and ask prices (the offers) are where you buy and sell)
Explain the quotation convention for FX forwards
Communicate the difference between forward and spot exchange rates - the forward points - measures in pips (1/10.000).
If the EURUSD spot rate is 1.3628 and the 1Y forward exchange rate is 1.3615, a trader would say that the 1Y forward is trading at -13pips
What is the contract size for 1 bund future lot?
100.000 EUR
What is a swaption?
The right but not the obligation to enter into an IRS on a future date with a prespecified fixed rate.
It can be settled with either physical or cash settlement. When there is physical the swap is initiated.
What is a xccy
An OTC agreement to exchange a series of floating rate payments in one currency against a series of floating rate payments in another currency.
It has initial and final exchange of notional (unlike an IRS).
Standard is to exchange the 3M IBOR rates in the two currencies with a spread to one of the legs. For swaps quoted against USD, this basis swap spread is applied to the non-USD leg.
The position is denoted relative to the spread (are we paying or receiving the spread).
Why is the market activity split between FX forward and Xccy market across maturities?
FX forwards carry interest risk against the fixed cash flow in each currency. This interest rate risk is roughly proportional to the time-to-maturity.
For longer dated FX forwards this risk can be quite significant. The interest rate risk can in turn be offset by exchanging floating rate payments - exactly as is done in the Xccy.
Intuitively, we can think of Xccy as being an FX forward contract where you simultaneously trade an IRS in each currency to remove the interest rate risk.
The market is split due to the significant interest rate risk above 1Y maturities.
What is an FX forward?
A bilateral (to-sidet) OTC contract to exchange cash flows in two different currencies at a future date at a prespecified exchange rate.
Simply two known opposing cash flows in two different currencies at a future date.
How to find the NPV of a FX forward?
Since it is two known opposing cash flows in different currencies at a future date, we can easily value the contract by simply discounting them back using their respective discount factors and collect the NPV in a single currency via the spot exchange rate.
Contracts are initiated with zero NPV
What is an FX swap and how does it differ from an FX Forward?
An OTC combination of a spot exchange trade and the reverse FX Forward.
Simply an agreement to e.g. buy Euros and sell dollars today against selling euros and buying dollars in the future.
While the FX forward in itself carries outright exposure to exchange rates, the fx swap has a more specialised risk profile since the simultaneous spot trade neutralises (most of) the outright exposure.
The fx swap exchanges cash flows on the spot date against exchange the reversed flow on the maturity date.
What does an investor who bought a given bond in an asset swap package and as such is receiving the spread hope the spread does afterwards?
Positioned/hope for the ASW spread to fall, i.e. the credit risk profile of the bond is improved and will increase the bond pricing
The receiver in a plain vanilla IRS is positioned for higher/lower rates?
Lower rates