LIBOR Fallback transformers - portfolio valuation

In this transformer's blog installment, we look at the fallback options impact on a portfolio level.

The portfolio we used for the examples is a portfolio of 1,000 USD swaps semi-randomly generated with different maturities, rate levels and conventions. Some trades are Fixed v LIBOR 3M, some OIS and some basis Overnight V LIBOR 3M.

Present value

In the previous blog, we have seen that at a single trade level, the difference between the different options are not very large. On a portfolio level the result may be different. For the portfolio we have tested, we obtained the following results:

We have used a fixed spread of 25 bps. What we want to analyse is not only the difference between the legacy portfolio and the portfolio after fallback, we know that it will depend strongly on the spread selected, but also the difference between the different options.

The first test was run with curves calibrated with linear interpolation on the zero-rates. We see that, as expected, the Compounded Setting in Arrears and the OIS Benchmarks options gives almost the same value. Other options give relatively large differences, up to 160m on this large portfolio.

Computation time

A natural question, looking at all those options and the present value and sensitivity computations, is to know how much computation power is required to obtain those results. The answer is probably less than what most would expect. In the first test for the 1000 trades portfolio above and for the legacy description plus the 4 options analysed, the total computation time for the PV and all the delta ladders was around than 2 seconds (to be exact, 250ms to load the portfolio from a csv file and 1900ms to generate the 5 versions of the swaps and compute PV and delta for all versions; time computed on the author's laptop; time for other interpolation mechanisms in next section).

Interpolation

As the options change the way the rate is computed, we can expect the interpolation mechanism to have an impact. In the quant perspective, we have described how the interpolation mechanism has an impact on the forward spread, there is a lot of literature on the impact of interpolation on forward rates, and here we check the impact of the fallback option on the PV (through the forward rates) and see how much difference there is between the options depending on the interpolation mechanism. The interpolation schemes we have used are linear on the zero-rates, monotone cubic spline on the discount factors, natural cubic spline on the zero-rates and log-linear on the discount factors.

For the three options OIS Benchmark, Compounded in Arrears and compounded in Advance, there is a significant difference with LIBOR and between them, but the difference does not change significantly with the interpolation mechanism. This is not really surprising as each of them has an averaging mechanism on the coupons and the portfolio has a decent diversification in term of maturities and payment schedules. All yield curves are calibrated to the market and this is sufficient to have a relatively stable impact. In the case of the Spot Overnight option, the story is different. In this case, the rate selected for the fallback is a single day rate taken outside of the LIBOR period. The averaging and diversification does not work as well. The impact of the fallback can vary from almost nothing to more than 100m. It would certainly be possible to create portfolios where those impacts are even larger, just by selecting coupon fixing dates at special dates.

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0. Fallback transformers - Introduction
1. Fallback transformers - Present value and delta
2. Fallback transformers - Portfolio valuation
3. Fallback transformers - Forward discontinuation
4. Fallback transformers - Convexity adjustments
5. Fallback transformers - magnified view on risk
6. Fallback transformers - Risk transition

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Don't fallback, step forward!

Contact us for our LIBOR fallback quant solutions.

LIBOR Fallback transformers - PV and Delta

In this transformer's blog installment, we look at a single trade present value and delta risk.

The trade we look at is a plain vanilla payer USD Fixed v LIBOR 3M starting in 6M and with a tenor of 5Y. The coupon is 1% and the notional 100m. The trade is largely in-the-money (the forward rate is 2.95%). As SOFR-indexed instruments are not liquid yet, we have used EFFR curves as a proxy.

Delta ladder (Bucketed PV01 - Key rate duration)

We first look at the delta risk (par rate sensitivities) implied by the different options (without convexity adjustment at this stage). The delta ladder is as expected, with most of the risk on the LIBOR curve, short the rate on the 6M and long the rates at 5Y6M (between 5Y and 7Y with most of it on the 5Y). As the trade is largely in-the-money, there is also a non-negligible delta on the OIS curve.

The total for each column has to be taken with pinch of salt. The individual numbers are not with respect to the same instruments and the conventions are not the same for all of them.

Delta ladder for the legacy USD-LIBOR-3M trade

Then we move to the different options. We start with an adjustment spread of 0 and then will add the spread later.

The first option we look at is the OIS benchmark. This is not part of the ISDA list (part of our quant perspective proposal). We start with it because this is the closest to the IBOR trade is term of dates and structure. The adjusted RFR is also a term rate and the term has, by construction, exactly the same dates as the theoretical deposit underlying the LIBOR.

The delta is entirely moved from the LIBOR curve to the OIS curve. On the tenor side, it is very similar, short on the 6M and long between 5Y and 7Y.

Delta ladder for the option OIS Benchmark

The second option is the ISDA proposed Compounded Setting In Arrears. As discussed in details in our perspective, this option will either break the coherency of a single fixing and/or not be achievable in practice. Nevertheless we include it here as we deal only with vanilla swaps where it is achievable. For the vanilla swaps, if we ignore the detail of non-good business days, the valuation and risk are the same as for the OIS benchmark option as proved in the Section 5.2 of our perspective. Not surprising, the risk in this case is almost the same as in the previous one.

 Delta ladder for the option Compounding Setting In Arrears

The next option we look at is the ISDA proposed Spot Overnight. This is the replacement of a term benchmark with an overnight benchmark with the same fixing date but a very different underlying period (and economic reality). From a delta ladder perspective, we see that most of the risk as been translated by three months backward.

 Delta ladder for the option Spot Overnight

If we take the first period, with a LIBOR risk from 2BD+6M to 2BD+9M, it is now an overnight risk from 2BD+6M-2BD to 2BD+6M-1BD. A delta appears on the 3M because the forward rate of the first fixing is now impacted by the 3M rate and the 6M rate. If we were to look at the sensitivity of a 6Mx3M swap (one period LIBOR-3M swap starting in 6M), the risk from the forward is negative on 3M, positive on 6M and there is a little bit of discounting on the 9M.

What the delta ladder does not show is that most of the sensitivity is concentrated on few dates, one every 3 months. If the delta ladder had daily points we would see spikes at those dates. If such an option was selected, the delta ladder as presented here would become almost obsolete for risk management and other views of the risk would be required.

The last option we look at is the ISDA proposed Compounding Setting in Advance. The rate is for a period of the same tenor as the LIBOR and the rate is overnight rates compounded, but the period is the period before the fixing instead of the period after in the LIBOR case. The impact on the delta is that the sensitivities related to the forward rates are move backward by three-months in the ladder.

Delta ladder for the option Compounding Setting In Advance

Note that the total delta is not very different from one option to the other.

Present value and spread adjustment

Up to now, we have described only the risk (delta) for a given fixed adjustment spread of 0. What is happening when the spread is modified? In the next figure, we have displayed the impact of modifying the spread from 0 to 50 bps. The result is rather unspectacular. The change of present value is linear in the spread and the different options generate rather similar present values.

Profile of present value for different levels of spread.

At the level of a single swap the present values do not look very different and the value transfer is coming more from the spread choice than from the adjusted RFR option choice. When we will look at a large portfolio level in the next blog, we will see that those small differences add-up and can lead to significant impacts.

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0. Fallback transformers - Introduction
1. Fallback transformers - Present value and delta
2. Fallback transformers - Portfolio valuation
3. Fallback transformers - Forward discontinuation
4. Fallback transformers - Convexity adjustments
5. Fallback transformers - magnified view on risk
6. Fallback transformers - Risk transition

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Don't fallback, step forward!

Contact us for our LIBOR fallback quant solutions.

LIBOR Fallback transformers!

In our quant perspective on IBOR fallback, we discuss the quantitative finance aspect of the fallback and its different options, even adding some options to the ones proposed by ISDA.

Once the theoretical side is done, we can move to the practical side. What would happen, not to a single payment and its detailed dates and convexity adjustment, but to a large portfolio? Portfolios a composed of hundred, thousand or even tens of thousand of swaps with many offsets. How do we estimate the impacts of the fallback when the trades' term sheet is transformed by it? Is there a quant solution to quickly analyze the fallback impacts?

This is not anymore a simple single curve to multi-curve problem. What we witnessed in 2008 by the move from single curve (LIBOR discounting) to multi-curve (OIS discounting) is very small with respect to fallback. In the multi-curve issue, it was simply the valuation estimate that was changed on a trade that remained unchanged. Here we have the trade itself - and obviously its valuation estimate - that changes.

Moreover, most of the ISDA proposed fallbacks lead to non-standard trades of which you probably don't have a single instance in you current portfolios - this is the case for option 1, 2 and 4. You have to transform the trades, in a different way for each option, and apply valuation method on each of them. Not a standard task for quants and risk managers. Your trades may be stored in data bases or systems that do not even support those new term sheets.  In theory, this is not very difficult, in practice this could be a lot of work especially that only one of the fallback options will be actually implemented, so 3/4 of the transformation work will just be thrown away.

As we have been working on the fallback issue since more than 6 months, we have developed a lot of  ideas, formulas, code and insight into the problem. In particular we have created a

Fallback Transformer.

The idea is that you pass your portfolio of legacy swaps, they are transformed into different version associated to the fallback options and for each option valuation and risks are computed in a flexible way. Depending of the hypothesis on the spread adjustment, the pricing mechanism and the curves, you can easily have 10 versions of the fallback's impact. It will not tell you exactly how to solve all your issues, but it will allow you to be

Ready for the fallback.

We will describe some extracts of the transformer results in forthcoming blogs.

The first part (to be published later today) describes the present value and (delta) risk of a single trade for the different options. The second part describes the valuation impact on a large portfolio and the computation performance. In the third part, we we look at the convexity adjustments.

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0. Fallback transformers - Introduction
1. Fallback transformers - Present value and delta
2. Fallback transformers - Portfolio valuation
3. Fallback transformers - Forward discontinuation
4. Fallback transformers - Convexity adjustments
5. Fallback transformers - magnified view on risk
6. Fallback transformers - Risk transition
7. Fallback transformers - Historical spread impact on value transfer 
8. Fallback transformers - A median in a crisis
9. Fallback transformers - Gaps and overlaps  

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Don't fallback, step forward!

Contact us for LIBOR fallback and discontinuation: trainings, workshops, advisory, tools, developments, solutions.

Risk-based overnight-linked futures - innovative design

Some years ago I proposed a innovative design for risk-based swap futures.


I worked with ASX to adapt it to the AUD BBSW swap market and a product based on that design has been traded on the exchange since 2016 (even if it has not attracted a lot of trading activity).


With the new importance of overnight benchmarks, the ETD market has to find a product that could be used for price discovery and risk management of the full term structure of interest rates.


I have detailed a version of the generic futures design to match the overnight conventions and OTC markets. The product has been presented to the main interest rate futures exchanges in Europe and the USA. We will see if it takes a new life.


All the technical details are now available in the form of a muRis_Q Advisory Market Infrastructure Analysis. The document can be downloaded from SSRN at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3238640.


In the graph below I have displayed the convexity adjustments between the ETD futures and the OTC swaps that can be obtained with this design (in red) and the ones with the current design of overnight-linked futures. See the paper for the exact description of the graph.

Course: Interest Rate Modelling in the Multi-curve Framework: Collateral and Regulatory Requirements (2)

Marc Henrard will present the course

Interest Rate Modelling in the Multi-curve Framework: Collateral and Regulatory Requirements

in New York on 1-2 October 2018.

The course details can be seen on the London Financial Studies web site at https://www.londonfs.com/programmes/interest-rate-modelling/Overview/

Course: Interest Rate Modelling in the Multi-curve Framework: Collateral and Regulatory Requirements

Marc Henrard will present the course

Interest Rate Modelling in the Multi-curve Framework: Collateral and Regulatory Requirements

in London on 24-25 September 2018.

The course details can be seen on the London Financial Studies web site at https://www.londonfs.com/programmes/interest-rate-modelling/Overview/

Market infrastructure: A quant perspective on IBOR fallback proposals

A new note in the series Market infrastructure developments analysis is now available on SSRN. The note, titled

A quant perspective on IBOR fallback proposals

is written by Marc Henrard

Abstract

With the increased expectation of some IBORs discontinuation and the increasing regulatory requirements related to benchmarks, a more robust fallback provision for benchmark-linked derivatives is becoming paramount for the interest rate market. Several options for such a fallback have been proposed. This note describes and analyses some of those options. The focus is on the quantitative finance impacts. None of the options that have been proposed fits all of the criteria for a good fallback provision. It appears that some of the options that have gained traction failed even the achievability criterion. The note concludes with the author's personal preference.

The note is available on SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3226183

IBOR Global Benchmark Transition Report

ISDA has published an IBOR Global Benchmark Transition Report. The report is available at : https://www.isda.org/2018/06/25/ibor-global-benchmark-transition-report/ 

The survey on which the report is based indicates that there is a general market awareness regarding the transition and that market participants are starting to prepare. Nevertheless, less than a quarter of the survey participants have started concrete steps in that direction.

Don't hesitate to contact us regarding IBOR and benchmark transition. We have worked intensively on related issue for several years. We provide to our clients a rapid access to the foundations on which to build their added value.

Our services include expertise and tools on valuation issues and senior staffing for our clients to initiate their program from a quantitative point of view. We also have a long experience in executive education and technical workshops.

Working paper: Variation margin in presence of trade cash flows

A new working paper by Marc Henrard is now available on SSRN. The title of the paper is

Variation margin in presence of trade cash flows

With the generalisation of Variation Margin (VM) collateral, the derivative world is not driven anymore by discrete cash flows but by continuous dividend. Due to practical constraints, the VM is paid with a one day delay. This delay reduces significantly the effectiveness of the margin process as credit risk exposure reduction around the trade cash flow payments. This note presents an efficient and simple approach to bring back the effectiveness of the VM process even around trade flows dates. The approach is based on the usage of a forward valuation in the VM computation process.

The paper is available on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3154329

New working paper: overnight futures

A new working paper by Marc Henrard is now available on SSRN. The title of the paper is

Overnight Futures: Convexity Adjustment

The paper describes the pricing, including the convexity adjustment, of the a new overnight benchmark based futures in the collateral framework using a Gaussian HJM-like model. This new type of futures will soon start trading on CME for USD futures on SOFR and on CurveGlobal for GBP futures on SONIA.

The paper is available on SSRN at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3134346