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Felix Matthys
0
1990 2000 2010
Figure 1: Panel A: Yield Curve evolution over time. Source: Federal Reserve Board. Panel B:
Mexican inter-bank rate from March 1996 until February 2016 (Banco de Mexico).
1Y 2Y 3Y 5Y 7Y 10Y
5Y 1 0.997 0.987
7Y 1 0.996
10Y 1.000
Figure 2: Average Yield Curve evolution over time. Source: Federal Reserve Board.
where m = ⌊(T − t) × n⌋ is the total number of coupon payments over the lifetime of
the bond.
There are three factors that affect the bond price above, of which two are fixed, namely
the coupon rate c and the maturity T .
rtT
• The level of interest rates ( , )
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
▶ As the term structure increases, its price decreases, r (t, T ) ↑ → Pc (t, T ) ↓
and vice versa.
▶ In other words, there is an inverse relationship between movements in rates
and bond prices
∆Pc (t, T )
<0
∆r (t, T )
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 6 / 223
A parallel shift in the Term Structure
Figure 3: Left Panel: Parallel shift in the yield curve from r (t, T ) to r (t, T ) + ∆r . Right
Panel: Discounted coupons when yield curve shifts from r (t, T ) to r (t, T ) + ∆r (without
principal repayment at maturity.)
• An increase of 2.5% in yields leads the bond price decline from $ 73.6349 to $
59.6919, which is a decrease of -18.935%.
Consider the following bond: Coupon rate is 5%, paid quarterly with maturity 10 years.
Further details on how coupon rate and maturity affect bond prices
3 Inflation or Purchasing Power Risk: Since most bonds are nominal, an increase
in price level may deteriorate the purchasing power of cash flows received from the
bond investment.
Since in general, the coupon rate and the maturity of a bond is fixed, the main risk
factor for bond pricing is changes in the level of interest rates.
• Furthermore, since price sensitivity tends to increase with time to maturity,
making long-term bonds more susceptible to changes in interest rate levels.
• A key measure for bond price sensitivity that is widely used by traders is Duration.
Definition: Duration
The duration of a security is defined as the sensitivity of the security’s price to small,
uniform changes in the yield curve (typically 1 Basis point = 0.01%).
• Thus, the duration tells us by how many percentage points the bonds price is
going to change in response to a X % change in interest rates.
• In other words, bonds with higher durations carry more risk and have higher price
volatility than bonds with lower durations.
• Example: consider a zero coupon bond with time to maturity T and price
Z (t, T ). By applying the definition we have:
1 ∂Z (t, T )
Dz (t, T ) = −
Z (t, T ) ∂r
1 h i
=− × −(T − t) × e −r (t,T )×(T −t)
Z (t, T )
1
=− × [−(T − t) × Z (t, T )]
Z (t, T )
=T −t
where Dz (t, T ) denotes the duration of a zero coupon bond with time to maturity
T − t.
90
80
70
Zero Coupon Bond Pz(r,t;T)
60 Accurate Approximation
50
40
30
20
10
Non Accurate Approximation
0
0 5 10 15
Interest Rate r (%)
Figure 4: Price of a 20-year Zero Coupon Bond against r , and its first derivative
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 15 / 223
Duration of a Zero Coupon Bond cont.
Figure 5: Price of a 20-year Zero Coupon Bond against r . First order Taylor approximation at
r1,0 = 2.5% and r2,0 = 10%
• We will now show that the duration of a portfolio with N securities each with price
Pi (t, T ) = Pi , i = 1, . . . , N, is simply the weighted sum (where the weights are
the relative holdings) of durations of all the securities.
• Let’s start with the simple two security case.
• Suppose we have ϕ1 units of security 1 and ϕ2 of security 2. Let P1 and P2 be
the prices of the two securities and D1 and D2 their durations, respectively.
• Let W be the value of the portfolio
W = ϕ1 × P1 + ϕ2 × P2
where Dz (t, Ti ) = Ti − t is the duration of a zero coupon bond with maturity Ti − t and
wTi , i = 1, . . . , n be the present value contribution of the cash flow at time Ti . Then,
c/n · Pz (t, Ti )
wTi = , i = 1, . . . , m − 1
Pc (t, T )
(1 + c/n) · Pz (t, Ti )
wTn = , i =m
Pc (t, T )
Some remarks:
• Looking at Figure 6 above, this does NOT imply that the sum of discounted cash
flows to the left of the duration arrow (smaller than 7.058 years) is equal to the
sum of cash flows received (including the repayment of the face at maturity) after
the duration date.
• To get the balance right (center of gravity in Figure 6) we need to weight each
discounted cash flow by its (time) ’distance’ to duration.
Further details on the interpretation of duration
• Intuitively, it’s clear why the duration of a coupon bond is always shorter than the
duration of a zero coupon bond. In the former case the investor gets intermediate
cash flows and therefore has to wait a shorter period of time to get back his/her
invested money, whereas in the latter case the investor has to wait until maturity
to get any payment.
where Pz (t, Ti ) denotes the current time t price of a zero coupon bond with
maturity Ti and continuously compounded interest rate r .
• Deduce that
dPc (t, T )
= −Dc (t, T )dr (7)
Pc (t, T )
and interpret this formula.
• Suppose we hold a portfolio of 10-year at-par coupon bonds worth $ 100 Mio. (1
Mio. ×N) with duration equal to 5. By how much will the value of this portfolio
decline if the yield increases by one basis point (dr = 0.01%)?
Then taking the first derivative with respect to r (t, Ti ), i = 1, . . . , n of the coupon
bond price in Equation (8) above gives
m
!
dPc (t, T ) ∂ cX
= Pz (t, Ti ) + Pz (t, Tn )
dr ∂r n i=1
m
cX
=− Pz (t, Ti )(Ti − t) − Pz (t, Tn )(T − t) (9)
n i=1
Thus, the duration gives the percentage change in bond price for a given increase
in interest rates r , provided the change in interest rates is very small.
Using the duration result derived in Equation (5) we can deduce a very simple formula
which relates the change in bond price dP to the change in interest rate dr
dPc (t, T ) = PcN (t, T ) − PcO (t, T ) = −Dc (t, T ) × PcO (t, T ) × dr (11)
where PzO (t, T ) and PzN (t, T ) denotes the old (before the interest rate change) and new
bond price, respectively.
• Note that the same formula holds for zero coupon bonds, i.e.
dPz (t, T ) = PzN (t, T ) − PzO (t, T ) = −Dz (t, T ) × PzO (t, T ) × dr
where Dz (T − t) = (T − t)
Dollar Duration D $
dP = −D $ × dr , DP$ = DP × P (12)
Some remarks:
• Instead of giving us the percentage change of our portfolio, i.e. dPP
when interest
rates change, the Dollar duration gives us the absolute change i.e. dP in wealth
given a change in interest rates.
• The definition of duration in Equation (2) implicitly assumes that the portfolio of
securities P is nonzero. However, for many trading strategies the securities may
have value equal to zero.
• Furthermore, the dollar duration of a portfolio of N securities is the weighted
average of the dollar duration of the individual securities, i.e.
N
X
$
DW = wi$ × Di$
i=1
where wi$ is the number of units in security i and Di$ is it’s corresponding dollar
duration.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 28 / 223
Duration of a Floating Rate Note
where r2 (Ti , Ti+1 ) is the reference rate that is determined at the last reset date.
1 ∂(FRB(t, T ))
DFRB (t, T ) = −
FRB(t, T ) ∂r
1 dZ (t, Ti+1 ) r2 (Ti , Ti+1 )
=− ×N × 1+
FRB(t, T ) dr 2
1 r2 (Ti , Ti+1 )
=− [−(Ti+1 − t)Z (t, Ti+1 )] × N × 1 +
FRB(t, T ) 2
= Ti+1 − t
• Duration of the floating rate bond is simply the time until the next coupon
payment Ti+1 − t.
• Important observation: Even if the maturity date of the floating rate bond is
relatively long, for instance T = 10 years, its duration could be very small since it
is maximally Ti+1 − t which depends on the frequency of coupon payments.
• Macaulay Duration:
• The Macaulay duration is defined as
(1 + y /n) ∂P
DMc (t, T ) = −
P ∂y
• Some algebra shows
m
X
DMc (t, T ) = wj × (Tj − t)
j=1
where ! !
1 N × c/n 1 N × (1 + c/n)
wTj = , wm = m (14)
1 + yn
j
Pc 1 + yn Pc
• Modified Duration:
• The modified duration DMD (t, T ) is instead defined as
1 ∂Pc (t, T )
DMD (t, T ) = −
Pc (t, T ) ∂y
DMc (t, T )
DMD (t, T ) =
1 + yn
Remarks:
• Since fluctuating interest rates will affect duration, modified duration shows how
much the duration changes for each percentage change in yield.
Although the Macaulay and the modified duration both measure the price sensitivity of
a bond with respect to changes in YTM, there are some important differences that need
to be discussed.
Figure 7: Price of 20 year zero coupon bond with Macaulay and Modified Duration at
r0 = 7.5%.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 36 / 223
How Good is the Approximation?
Suppose we are given a zero coupon bond with time to maturity T − t = 5 years and we
want to compare the estimated change in the bond price dP for a given percentage
change in yields dr
• Let’s assume that the current interest rate is r = 1.5% and they are assumed to
rise by dr = 0.5%, i.e. 50 basis points.
• The zero bond prices before and after the increase in interest rates are
PzC (t, T ) = 93.01 and PzN (t, T ) = 90.71.
• Now, the new bond price can be approximated by
dPz (t, T ) = PzN (t, T ) − PzO (t, T ) = −Di (t, T ) × PzO (t, T ) × dr
PzN (t, T ) = PzO (t, T ) − Di (t, T ) × PzO (t, T ) × dr , i ∈ {Mc, Mod}
• The exact new price is PzN (t, T ) = 90.71, which shows that the error using the
Modified duration is only -0.01 as opposed to 0.03 (Macaulay duration).
• Using YTM, can we say more about the direction of how changes in y will affect
the duration Dc (t, T ) of a coupon bearing bond?
• In fact, we can proof that duration falls in YTM:
where S is given by
m
X
S := wi ((Ti − t) − DMc )2
i=1
Details of Derivation
0
0 50 100
Maturity T
Figure 8: Duration: Data based on semi-annually paid cash flows.
Remark: Duration of coupon paying bonds is always lower than the corresponding zero
coupon bond duration.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 40 / 223
Duration and Maturity: Passing to the limit T → ∞
Table 3: Yield Curve on March 15, 2000 calculated from CRSP data (Daily Treasuries).
a. 6.95% 3 3 2.8993
• The Value at Risk (abbr. VaR) is a quantitative risk measure, which tries to
assesses the risk in a given portfolio.
• It is widely used by both financial corporations (banks, insurances, hedge funds,
etc.) and regulators to quantify possible losses over a given time period and
probability α.
• More specifically, the VaR at a given probability α, where α is typically large, i.e.
α = 0.95, 0.99, tries to answer the following question:
▶ With α = 95% probability, what is the maximum loss over a given time
Note that the previous definition of VaR is concerned with the ’normal’ losses, i.e. the
losses not far out in the tails of the distribution. We can rewrite Equation (18) as follows
Expected Value−at−risk
Shortfall
frequency
−6 −4 −2 0 2 4
return
dP = −DP × P × dr
where DP denotes the duration of the bond portfolio and dr is the change in interest
rates. Since LT = −dP, if dr is normally distributed, i.e.
Figure 10: Daily changes in USD LIBOR from Jan 1986 to Sep 2019 (Left Panel).
Daily changes in MXN LIBOR from Apr 1996 to May 2018 (Right Panel).
Figure 11: Histrogram of daily changes in USD LIBOR from Jan 1986 to Jan 2016
(Left Panel). Histrogram of daily changes in MXN LIBOR from Apr 1996 to Jan 2010
(Right Panel).
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 58 / 223
VaR of a Bond Portfolio: An Example
• Consider a portfolio manager who has invested into a $ 100 Mio. bond portfolio
whose estimated duration is DP = 5.
• Then the bond portfolio sensitivity can be approximated as
dP = −DP × P × dr (22)
where dr are the daily changes in the LIBOR rate (USD or MXN).
• We define the losses by LT = −dP = − (PT − Pt ).
We want to compute the 1-day value at risk with confidence level α = 95%. Let’s
consider two very popular approaches.
• Historical (Empirical) Distribution Approach. This method is non-parametric,
i.e. does not postulate any model or distributional assumptions. Relies on past
data only.
• Normal Distribution Approach. This method is parametric and it relies on
distributional assumptions. Furthermore, parameters of the distribution of interest
rate changes need to be estimated.
1
Recall that the VaR is usually reported as a positive number, see Equation (18)
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 61 / 223
Interest Rate Risk and VaR
Figure 12: Histrogram of daily changes in Bond Portfolio (USD, reft Panel).
Histrogram of daily changes in in Bond Portfolio (MXN, right Panel).
µ[USD
L = −0.14 × 106 = −142′ 999, µ[MXN
L = −0.19 × 106 = −189′ 739,
√ √
σ[
USD
L = 24.81 × 106 = 4′ 980′ 556, σ[
MXN
L = 54.33 × 106 = 7′ 370′ 845
▶ The estimated VaR at confidence level α = 95% can be computed as
d iα (LT ) = σ
VaR ci × lα + µ
ci , i = {USD, MXN}
L L
d USD
VaR α (LT ) = 8.05 Mio. USD,
d MXN
VaR α (LT ) = 11.93 Mio. MXN
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 63 / 223
Historical vs. Normal Distribution VaR
The computed bond portfolio VaR differ quite a lot depending which method we are
using to compute it.
• Based on USD LIBOR
d USD
1 Hist. Dist. VaR d USD
α,HD (LT ) = 6.29$ vs. Normal Dist. VaRα,ND (LT ) = 8.05$
iid
Figure 13: Histrogram of changes in Bond Portfolio dP when dr ∼ N (0, 1).
Key Observation:
• Standard Gaussian approximation mimics empirical shape of data very well.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 66 / 223
Historical vs. Normal Distribution VaR: Under Normality
Now computing both the historical and normal distribution VaR at confidence level
α = 95% we obtain
• Hist. Dist. VaR
d α,Sim (LT ) = 8.31$ vs.
There are some problems with using (jointly) the Value at Risk and duration as a risk
measure.
• VaR is a statistical risk measure and thus depends on distributional assumptions
and the sample (time span) used for calculations.
• Another problem is estimation error when estimating the parameters of the
distribution which are used for modeling the changes in interest rate.
• The VaR is a percentile, and thus only gives a threshold value for the losses. For
example, if the VaR is 8 Mio., implies that with probability α we do not lose more
than 8 Mio. However, the VaR does not say anything about the distribution of
losses once we have passed this threshold (the VaR level). It might be the case
that there are extremely rare loses which are potentially very large.
• Using the normal approach produces very poor fits when the empirical
distribution is very heavy tailed, i.e. a lot of data points in either the extreme
left or right of the distribution. This is because the normal distribution assigns
very low probability to extreme events. (See difference in VaR based on historical
distribution and normal approach)
• The VaR formula uses as input the expected change in the bond portfolio, i.e.
µP = DP × P × E[dr ], which is very hard to estimate with high precision from the
data. Therefore, these errors can generate a larger error in the computation of the
VaR. For this reason, it is generally better to consider only the unexpected VaR
(setting µP = 0)
• Lastly, using duration as a measure of interest rate sensitivity is only a good
approximation when there are small and parallel changes in the yield curve.
However, by the very definition of VaR, which is concerned with large changes, this
approximation becomes very inaccurate.
where the mean and standard deviation of the losses are given by
r
ν−2
µL = DP × P × µr σL = DP × P × σr , ν>2
ν
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
data t(3)
t(10) normal
iid
Figure 14: Histrogram of standardized LT when dr ∼ t(ν, 0, 1) with ν = 3, 10.
Remarks:
• Data seem to have more extreme observations.
• t(3, 0, 1) density matches data in the tails better than t(10, 0, 1) or N (0, 1).
• Note: limν→∞ t(ν, 0, 1) → N (0, 1)
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 71 / 223
Leaving Normality: Changes in Bond Portfolio
Now based on the t(ν, 0, 1) simulated interest rate changes, let us compare the VaR at
confidence level α ∈ {95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99%} using the
• Historical distribution approach
• Normal distribution approach with mean zero and variance equal to unity
• t - Distribution approach with mean zero and variance equal to unity and degree
of freedom ν equal to three (the true underlying distribution)
The question is: How big is the differences in VaR comparing the three methods?
Figure 15: Comparison of bond portfolio VaR for α ∈ {95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99%}.
i.i.d
Sample size is n = 10′ 000 and dr ∼ N (0, 1).
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 74 / 223
Convergence of t-VaRα (LT ) to normal VaRα (LT )
Remarks:
• VaR based on tν,0,1 significantly overestimates risk for any significance level.
• Historical distribution VaR, is very close to VaR based on based on N (0, 1),
especially for α relatively large
• Note: When ν ↑ the t-VaRα (LT ) approaches the normal VaRα (LT )
• Convergence is very fast, as for ν = 30 the t-VaRα (LT ) is only slightly above the
normal VaRα (LT ).
• One of the most severe problems of the VaR is, that this risk measure does not
indicate how big the losses can become, once we exceed the VaR threshold.
• The expected shortfall (or conditional VaR) precisely overcomes this conceptual
deficiency of the VaR by taking all the losses into account that are further in the
tail of the loss distribution.
• Informally speaking, tries to answer the following question:
▶ Over a given time horizon T , how large are the expected losses of a portfolio
once we exceed the VaR level?
• For highly fat-tailed distributions or when the portfolio contains highly non-linear
derivative securities, the expected shortfall is a more accurate risk metric than the
VaR.
• Hint 1: Start with E [LT |LT ≥ VaRα (LT )] and using Bayes’ rule we can write this
conditional expectation as
E [LT ∩ {LT ≥ VaRα (LT )}]
E [LT |LT ≥ VaRα (LT )] = (27)
P[LT ≥ VaRα (LT )]
where fL (l) is the density of the losses. Now setting u = FL (l) such that du = fL (l)dl
and the integration limits are
Solution
By Leibniz rule for differentiating integrals, we have for a continuous function f that
Z b(u) ! Z
b(u)
d ∂f
dx + f b(u), u · b ′ (u) − f a(u), u · a′ (u)
f (x, u) dx =
du a(u) a(u) ∂u
dP = −DP × P × dr
where DP denotes the duration of the bond portfolio and dr is the change in interest
rates. Let LT = −dP denote again the losses, if dr is normally distributed, i.e.
µL × P[LT ≥ VaRα ] = µL × (1 − α)
where [n(1 − α)] denotes the largest integer not exceeding n(1 − α).
▶ Thus we simply average over the [n(1 − α)] largest losses.
▶ Example: Suppose n = 1′ 000 and α = 0.99, then our estimate for the
expected shortfall would simple be the average over the 10 largest losses.
2
The minus sign in front of the sum is due to the convention that the expected shortfall is reported as a positive number.
See slides on VaR, see Equation (18)
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 84 / 223
How To Estimate Expected Shortfall
Let’s consider again our bond portfolio in USD and MXN
• In order to compute our estimate for the expected shortfall, we first localize the
[n(1 − α)]th observation.
• With α = 95 and n = 7609 we obtain that [n(1 − α)] = 380
• Therefore, we simply average over all losses that are larger and equal to the 380th
observation.
• We obtain that
c USD
ES α (LT ) = 11.051,
c MXN
ES α (LT ) = 19.83, (32)
which is 75.5% and 101.5% larger than the estimated VaR, which was
d USD
VaR d MXN (LT ) = 9.84, at the same confidence level
α (LT ) = 6.29 and VaRα
α = 5%! Why is this difference so large?
• Recall that the expected shortfall is the average over all losses exceeding the VaR
threshold.
• For the USD (MXN) LIBOR, the largest three losses are 72.99 (91.97) Mio.,
51.73 (74.44) Mio. and 50 (72.02) which are all substantially larger than the
estimated VaR.
LT ∼ N (c cL 2 )
µL , σ
cL = n1 ni=1 LT ,i and σ
cL 2 = n−1
Pn
1
cL )2 are the empirical
P
where µ i=1 (LT ,i − µ
sample mean and variance of the losses LT .
▶ As above, we denote by Lc
T the estimated loss of the bond portfolio.
[
µ USD
L = −0.14 × 106 = −142′ 999, µ[
MXN
L = −0.19 × 106 = −189′ 739,
p p
σ[
USD
L = 24.81 × 106 = 4′ 980, σ[
L
MXN
= 54.33 × 106 = 7′ 371
• For the USD, these values are fairly close to the estimated ES using the historical
distribution approach.
• Based on USD LIBOR
c USD
1 Hist. Dist. ES c USD
α,HD (LT ) = 11.05$ vs. Normal Dist. ESα,ND (LT ) = 10.42$
• For example, if we have computed the daily VaR and ES, we can simply compute
the weekly, monthly or yearly VaR and ES by setting h = 5, 20 or h = 252.
• For estimating the VaR and ES using the historical distribution approach, no
such scaling formula exists.
• The obvious way to estimate a monthly instead of a daily VaR or ES is of course
to just use monthly data. In this case, we will just take the first, middle or last
observation in each month.
• Since this procedure reduces the number of observations considerably, the resulting
VaR and ES estimates are more noisy (imprecise).
• However, we can improve our data in the sense that we can aggregate daily losses
to monthly by averaging over all the observations within a month.
• Since the average is less noisy (has lower variance) than a single observation, with
this method, we more precisely estimate the empirical quantiles of our
distribution.
• Therefore, since both the VaR and the ES crucially depend on the estimated
empirical quantiles, we get a better estimate for our risk measures.
Now the question is: Which amount can the pension fund promise to pay out its
retirees every six months over the next 30 years?
• At the current interest rate r2 = 5% this allows the pension fund to pay out
X = 32′ 352 every half year.
• In other words, the pension fund is now obliged to pay out 32’352 USD regardless
of what happens to the interest rate level in the future.
• The main question now is: How can the pension fund hedge its financial
commitment over the next 30 years?
• Note that n × X > I due to discounting. Thus the pension fund has to invest the
money in a smart way in order to meet its obligations.
There are two main strategies the pension fund can pursue:
1 Cash Flow Matching
2 Dynamic Immunization
• The pension fund can try to buy securities that exactly match the payoff
characteristics.
• For instance, the pension fund could buy exactly the amount of zero coupon bonds
needed in order to pay the promised amount to retirees.
• This will in turn render the portfolio entirely risk free.
However, there are some problems associated with this hedging approach
• It is difficult to find a set of securities with precisely the required payoff
characteristics.
• Even if such securities are available, low liquidity or transaction costs may render
this approach too costly as for such long term commitments, a relatively high
number of securities needs to be traded.
However, there exists a better way of eliminating interest rate risk which is commonly
referred to dynamic immunization strategy
• or a long term 5% coupon bond whose current price we denote by Pc (t, TL ) with
maturity TL = 30 years.
• The duration of the short term bond is Dz (t, TS ) = 0.5 and Dc (t, TL ) = 15.84 for
the long term bond.
At every re-balanced date t = 0.5, 1, 1.5, . . . , 30 the pension fund does the following
• Obtain the 5/2 = 2.5% coupon from the 30 year bond.
• Collect the interest obtained from the investment on the short term treasury bill,
Rz (t, 0.5) = Z (t, 0.5)−1 − 1 = 0.97561−1 − 1 = 0.025%,
• Reinvest the remaining cash into the short - and long term bond according to
DL (t, TL ) − D(t, TS )
wt∗ = , t = 0.5, 1, . . . , 30 (34)
D(t, TL ) − D(t, TS )
• In theory, with re-balancing the portfolio according to Equation (34) the pension
fund is completely immune to interest rate changes.
• In other words, the fund will always be able to pay out the guaranteed amount to
the retirees.
12
11
10
6
rt1
5 rt2
rt2
4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates
Figure 16: Initial level of interest rate r0 = 4%. Simulation based on Feller process with
κ = 0.25, θ = 0.075 and σ = 0.05.
Given the simulated interest rate path from above, how does our wealth Wt evolve over
time.
• The pension funds initial wealth is W0 = 1 Mio. USD
• The initial portfolio holding in the long term bond is equal to w0∗ = 0.67
• Now the next periods wealth Wt+1 evolves according to
Let’s consider the three simulated interest rate paths rt1 , rt2 and rt3 in Figure 16 above
and look at how
• the short Pz (t, t + 0.5) and long term bond prices Pc (t, t + 30)
• the duration of the long term bond Dc (t, t + 30)
• the optimal weight in the long term bond wt∗
• the duration of the pension funds liabilities DL (t, t + 30)
evolve over time.
700000
600000 0.6
500000
400000 0.55
300000
200000 0.5
100000
0 0.45
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 17: Wealth Wt and portfolio wt evolution based on the three simulated interest
rate paths rt1 , rt2 and rt3 .
Observation
• Terminal Wealth is always greater than zero.
70 96.5
96
60
95.5
50 Pc1 (t, TL )
Pc2 (t, TL ) 95
Pc3 (t, TL )
40 94.5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 18: Short - and long term bond price evolution based on the three simulated
interest rate paths rt1 , rt2 and rt3 .
Observation
70 96.5
96
60
95.5
50 Pc1 (t, TL )
Pc2 (t, TL ) 95
Pc3 (t, TL )
40 94.5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 18: Short - and long term bond price evolution based on the three simulated
interest rate paths rt1 , rt2 and rt3 .
Observation
• Higher interest rates lead zero coupon bond to trade at a lower price
10 8
8 6
6
4
4
2
2
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 19: Short - and long term bond duration evolution based on the three simulated
interest rate paths rt1 , rt2 and rt3 .
Observation
• Variability of both the long term bond and the liability duration decreases as we
get closer to maturity.
• Based on the three simulated interest rate paths, we see from Figure 17 that
wealth of the pension fund is always positive over all periods.
• Now the question is: Whether this is true for any interest rate scenario
• In order to answer this question, we are going to simulate M = 25′ 000 different
interest rate paths and compute terminal wealth WT at maturity T = 30.
• If the immunization strategy works, we should expect to see only positive values of
wealth after 30 years.
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
50000 100000 150000 200000 250000
Dollars
Figure 20: Histrogram of terminal wealth distribution WT based on M = 25′ 000
simulation runs.
Key observation:
• Regardless of the interest rate scenario, with this immunization strategy the
pension fund will always have a strictly positive terminal wealth after 30 years.
Average Wealth Evolution
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 107 / 223
Suppose we would just fix the portfolio weight in the long term bond to be equal to
w f = (0, 0.5, 1, w )
Terminal Wealth WT
2500
w 1 =0
w 2 =0.5
w 3 =1
2000 w 4 =0.59911
1500
1000
500
0
−1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Dollars x 10
6
Analyzing the terminal wealth distribution under the four different scenarios we observe
the following
• Terminal wealth can become negative under all scenarios considered.
• Variance of terminal wealth varies considerably depending on the selected asset
allocation.
• For this particular simulation, investing 50% of the deposits into the zero coupon
bond and 50% of the deposits in the long term bond yields on average the highest
terminal wealth.
• Contrarily, investing all the deposits in the long term coupon bond yields on
average negative terminal wealth
• Terminal wealth remains fairly similar in the case when the pension fund invests
50% in each bond or according to w = 60%.
p
PF weight w Et [WTi ] Vt [WTi ] Sharpe Ratio
Table 4: Estimated Sharpe Ratios based on M = 25′ 000 Monte Carlo Simulation
Runs.
• We have to match the duration of assets with the duration of liabilities, i.e.
where DL (t, TM ) = 20. Since both bonds do not pay any coupon, we get
Dz (t, TL ) = 30 and Dz (t, TS ) = 1. Therefore solving Equation (113), we obtain
that w ∗ is
DL (t, TM ) − Dz (t, TS ) 20 − 1
w∗ = = = 0.655172
Dz (t, TL ) − Dz (t, TS ) 30 − 1
Therefore, the portfolio holdings in the 30 year and 1 year bond are
where the new interest rate is r N = 5%. Likewise, the present value of the pension
fund’s liabilities are now
X
XN = = 188.44
1.0520
which leaves us with a net effect of
∆ = P N − X N = 3.885 Mio.
4 In either interest rate scenario the pension fund will not loose any money if it
invests its deposits following the immunization strategy. In other words, the
pension fund is entirely hedged or immune to interest rate changes.
5 After 20 years the fund’s net assets are
N 20
ϕ1 × 10
+ ϕ2 × N × 1 + r N −X (37)
(1 + r N )
For the two interest rate scenarios we have considered Equation (37) yields
Therefore, regardless of the interest rate scenario, the fund will be able to fully
guarantee the promised payments. It even makes profit from using the
immunization strategy.
where the asset weights wA,i and liability weights wL,j are given by
Ai (r ) Lj (r )
wA,i = Pn wL,j = Pm
i=1 Ai (r ) j=1 Lj (r )
Solution
Given the left hand side of Equation (39), we have
n m
!
∂A ∂L X ∂Ai (r ) A Ai X ∂Lj (r ) L Lj
dE (r ) = − dr = − dr
∂r ∂r i=1
∂r Ai A j=1
∂r Lj L
n m
!
X Ai X Lj
=− ×DA,i × ×A− DL,j × × L dr
i=1
A j=1
L
n m
!
X X
=− wA,i × DA,i × A − wL,j × DL,j × L dr = − (DA × A − DL × L) dr
i=1 j=1
We can express the previous equity duration Equation (39) in terms of both the
Macaulay and Modified duration.
• Note, if we use the asset/liabilities Macaulay duration
/n) dLj (r )
Mc
DA,i (t, TAi ) = − (1+y
Ai
/n) dAi (r )
dr
Mc
and DL,i (t, TLj ) = − (1+y
Lj dr
Table 5: Example: Asset and Liability Structure of a Financial Institution. Numbers are
in Mio. $
Example:
• If interest rates increase by 10 Basis points, the market value is expected to decline
by approximately 11′ 025 × 0.001 = 11.025 Mio. $.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 121 / 223
Convexity
0.92
0.006
0.9
0.004
0.88
0.86 0.002
0.84
Pz (t, T ) 0
0.82 Dz (t, T )
Dz (t, T ) + Cz (t, T ))
0.8 −0.002
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Interest rate r Interest rate r
Figure 22: Price of Zero Coupon bond with maturity 1 year. Approximation point is
r = 5%.
0.9 Dz (t, T )
0.15 Dz (t, T ) + Cz (t, T ))
0.8
0.7
0.1
0.6
0.5
0.05
0.4
0.3
0
Pz (t, T )
0.2 Dz (t, T )
Dz (t, T ) + Cz (t, T ))
0.1 −0.05
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Interest rate r Interest rate r
Figure 23: Price of Zero Coupon bond with maturity 5 years. Approximation point is
r = 5%.
0.8
0.6
Dz (t, T )
Dz (t, T ) + Cz (t, T ))
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2
0
0
−0.2
−0.2
Pz (t, T ) −0.4
−0.4 Dz (t, T )
Dz (t, T ) + Cz (t, T ))
−0.6 −0.6
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Interest rate r Interest rate r
Figure 24: Price of Zero Coupon bond with maturity 15 years. Approximation point is
r = 5%.
1 ∂2P
C =
P ∂r 2
Therefore, convexity C accounts for the convex (non-linear) relationship between
the bond price P and the interest rate level r .
2 Furthermore, we can augment the approximation formula (see Equation (11)) for
the change of bond price due to a change in interest rates as follows
dP 1
= −D × dr + × C × dr 2 (42)
P 2
The more curvature the bond price has with respect to the interest rate level, the
better the approximation of the percentage change in the bond price is due to
adding the convexity adjustment.
For a given interest rate level r , the time t price of a zero coupon bond with maturity T
is given by
Pz (r ; t, T ) = Pz (t, T ) = N × Z (t, T ) = N × e −r ×(T −t)
Then the convexity of the zero coupon bond Cz is given by
W = ϕ1 × P1 + ϕ2 × P2
where Cz (t, Ti ) = (Ti − t)2 is the convexity of a zero coupon bond with maturity Ti − t
and wTi , i = 1, . . . , n be the present value contribution of the cash flow at time Ti .
Then,
c/n · Pz (t, Ti )
wTi = , i = 1, . . . , m − 1
Pc (t, T )
(1 + c/n) · Pz (t, Ti )
wTn = , i =m
Pc (t, T )
• Suppose we an investor has bought 100 Mio. USD (at par) worth of a 25 years
bond with 4% coupon paid out semi-annually
• Flat term structure with continuously compounded interest rate 3.5%.
• The current bond price is P(t, T ) = 107.7491, duration Dc (t, T ) = 16.3861 and
convexity Cc (t, T ) = 346.0587.
By how much does the investor expect the bond price to decline due to a uniform 1%
increase in interest rates using
1 the duration approximation
2 adding to the duration approximation a convexity correction
The exact value of the bond after the increase in interest rates is PcN (t, T ) = 91.8233
and thus the investor would suffer a loss of
• ϕ × (PcN (t, T ) − PcO (t, T )) = 106 × (91.8233 − 107.7491) = −15.926 Mio.
• or in percentage terms (91.8233 − 107.7491)/107.7491 = −14.7804%
1 Using only duration, the approximate absolute and relative losses are
Similar to the Dollar duration we have introduced in Equation (12), we can define dollar
convexity as follows
Dollar Convexity
Let P denote the price of a security and let r denote the interest rate level. Then the
dollar convexity is defined as
∂2P ∂D $
C$ = = −
∂r 2 ∂r
$
where D is the dollar duration from Equation (12).
• As for duration and dollar duration above, dollar convexity measures the absolute
change in the bond price due to a change in interest rates, as opposed to the
percentage/relative of the bond price due to a change in interest rate.
• Note that the dollar convexity of a zero coupon bond is not constant in the
interest rate level as Cz$ = (T − t)2 × Pz (r ; t, T ) clearly depends on r through the
bond price Pz .
We can also approximate the convexity adjustment factor using the following formula
dPc C Approx
= −Dc × dr + c × dr 2
Pc 2
• Therefore, the investor has to short 1,6942 Million units of the zero coupon bond
in order to hedge against parallel shifts in the term structure of interest rates.
Now since the duration hedge in Equation (45) holds only true approximately, we can
compute, using the exact changes of the two 10 year bond prices, how accurate the
investor’s hedge is.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 138 / 223
Constructing duration hedged portfolios cont.
• From the first equality in (45) now using the exact changes in bond prices, and
assuming that interest rates increase from 3.5% to 4.5%, we obtain that
Thus even though we used the (duration) optimal hedging strategy, the investor
will loose approximately −30′ 3920 USD.
• Conversely, if interest rate drop by 1% the change in portfolio value is
dV = −38′ 7430 USD.
• In other words, in both interest rate scenarios, the investor is going to loose money!
• Now the question is: Is this always the case? Meaning for every interest rate
scenario?
−200000
−400000
−600000
−800000
−1000000
−1200000
−1400000
−1600000
−1800000
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
Interest rate r + ∆r
Figure 25: Change in Portfolio Value using only duration hedging when interest rates
change by dr = ±2%. Initial interest rate level is r = 3.5% and the investor holds
Pc = ϕ × PcO = 106 × 107.7491 units of the 5% Coupon bonds with maturity 25 years.
0
5000000
−200000
4000000 −400000
−600000
3000000 −800000
−1000000
2000000
−1200000
1000000 −1400000
−1600000
0
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 −1800000
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
Interest rate r + ∆r Interest rate r + ∆r
Figure 26: Change in Portfolio Value using only duration hedging when interest rates change
by dr = ±2%. Initial interest rate level is r = 3.5%. Maturity of the hedging bonds are T = 10
(Left Panel) and T = 25 (Right Panel).
Remark:
• If the maturity of the zero coupon bond is T = 10 we get θ∗ = −2.7621 × 106 ,
which is substantially larger than maturity T = 25, compare with Equation (47).
• For a shorter maturity bond, its duration is much smaller (see (46).)
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 141 / 223
How good is the Duration Hedged Portfolio
Remarks:
• No matter the change in interest rate level, the portfolio will loose money.
• The larger the change in interest rates, the larger the portfolio loss regardless of
the sign of ∆r .
• Portfolio losses are asymmetric, i.e. when interest rates drop, they are bigger than
when interest rates rise.
• However, since the portfolio is not convexity hedged, it is not surprising that for
large interest rate movements, the investors suffers a substantial loss on his/her
bond portfolio.
Let’s now add the convexity adjustment term to Equation (45) and investigate by how
much we can improve the hedge of the investors bond portfolio.
▶ For the given setup, this approach will generate gains (losses) from hedging
when the investor trades a zero coupon bond with shorter (longer) maturity.
2 An other hedging strategy involves trading two additional securities to hedge both
duration and convexity separately.
With the numbers we obtain that Pz (t, TS ) = 83.9457, Pc (t, TL ) = 107.7491 and the
portfolio holdings in the short and the long term bond are given by
In other words, the investor has to short both the short and the long term bond.
0 1600000
−200000 1400000
−400000
1200000
−600000
1000000
−800000
800000
−1000000
600000
−1200000
−1400000 400000
The convexity hedging strategy shown above misses on an important element which is
the passage of time.
• We wrote that the change in the hedging portfolio is given by
∂V 1 ∂2V 2
dV = dr + dr (53)
∂r 2 ∂r 2
which implies that the portfolio is only dependent on the interest rate level r .
• However, bond prices change in value even though interest rate do not move as
time passes (time-to-Maturity becomes shorter).
• Therefore, in Equation (53), the portfolio V (r ) should be augmented by another
variable which is time, i.e.
V dt + ∂V dr + 1 ∂ V dr
∂ 2
t
2
dV (t, r ) = 2
(54)
∂ ∂r 2 ∂r
Therefore, the first term in Equation (54) implies that hedging portfolio depends on
time, which the previous hedging strategy has omitted.
When we introduced the concept of bond duration above, we assumed that the changes
in interest rate were uniform, i.e. that the shifts in the term structure of interest rates
are parallel.
• This assumption has important implications for risk management because we
essentially assume that the term structure moves the same at the short and as it
does at the long end.
• In other words, we assume that the slope and the curvature of the term structure
do not change.
• Thus, if we use duration hedging, we only guard ourselves against parallel shifts in
the term structure, but not against changes in its slope or curvature.
• Therefore, a duration hedging strategy eliminates the risk, while leaves us still
exposed to slope and curvature risk.
• We are now going to extend the previous analysis to hedge also slope and
curvature risk.
9 1Y
8.6
8
2Y
7
3Y 8.4
6
5
5Y 8.2
4 7Y
8
3 10Y
2 7.8
1
0 7.6
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Dates
Figure 28: Panel A: Yield Curve evolution over time. Panel B: Term Structure of Interest
Rates for two different dates. Source: Federal Reserve Board.
Remarks:
• If the assumption of parallel changes in interest rates were true, then the
differences between yields should be constant (Panel A).
• There can be considerable movements in slope and curvature for any given two
dates (Panel B)
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 150 / 223
Slope and Curvature: US Data cont.
Panel A: Term Spread 10Y-1Y Panel B: Curvature
3.5 2
3
1.5
2.5
1
2
1.5 0.5
1
0
0.5
-0.5
0
-0.5 -1
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Figure 29: Panel A: Term Spread evolution over time and Curvature in Panel B: Source:
Federal Reserve Board.
Remarks:
• As above, if the assumption of parallel changes in interest rates were true, then the
term spread and curvature should be constant over time.
drt = β × d ζt (57)
• Therefore, if τi = 1 year, then ∆rit is the change in one year zero rate over the
time period h.
3
For our estimation we assume that r (t + h, t + h + τi ) = r (t + h, t + τi ), since it is difficult to obtain data for maturities
not equal to 1,2,3,5,7 or 10 years. For monthly data, as we are using here, this difference is not very large, especially for longer
maturities.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 154 / 223
Estimation of Factor Models cont.
r
Let ∆ t = (dr1t , dr2t , . . . , drnt ) ∈ Rn be the vector of changes in zero rates for all
maturities i = 1, . . . , n and let ∆ζt the denote the vector of changes in m factors. Then
we can estimate the factor sensitivity β be running the following OLS regression
r
∆ t = α + β × ∆ζt + ϵt (59)
n n
where α ∈ R denotes the intercept vector and ϵ ∈ R is the vector of random error
terms.
Remark:
• α can be interpreted as the average change in interest rates which is not due to
the factors ζt .
• It is important to note that if α is not small, then the factor model will produce
poor estimates of the changes in zero rates ∆ t . r
• However, in most applications, α is relatively small and thus the factor model
should yield accurate predictions about the changes in zero rates.
Mat 1Y 2Y 3Y 5Y 7Y 10Y
βc
i1 0.799 1.012 1.093 1.103 1.043 0.950
2
Radj. 0.717 0.913 0.966 0.970 0.915 0.814
dr d d
Table 6: Estimation Results for one factor model = β ζ1t where ζ1t is estimated
from changes in the level of interest rates. Bootstrapped yield data are collected over
the time period January 1990 until September 2015.
Mat 1Y 2Y 3Y 5Y 7Y 10Y
βc
i1 0.879 1.058 1.114 1.078 0.993 0.879
βc
i2 -0.528 -0.306 -0.135 0.167 0.330 0.472
2
Radj. 0.973 0.981 0.978 0.988 0.989 0.978
• βc
i2 denotes the estimate for the term spread.
βc
i1 0.992 1.015 1.025 0.992 0.985 0.992
βc
i2 -0.417 -0.348 -0.222 0.083 0.321 0.583
βc
i3 -0.284 0.107 0.223 0.216 0.021 -0.284
2
Radj. 0.973 0.981 0.978 0.988 0.989 0.978
• βc
i3 denotes the estimate for the curvature.
Remarks:
• Note that Equation (61) is given for any factor. Can be level, slope, curvature or
any other factor.
• If ζj is the interest rate level, then Equation (61) is essentially equivalent to the
classical duration.
Exercise
Verify the duration formulas on the previous slide
• Hint 1 : Use the change rule to compute
∂P ∂P ∂r (t, Ti )
= (64)
∂ζj ∂r (t, Ti ) ∂ζj
• Hint 2 : In order to verify the second bullet point, use two securities with prices
P1 (t, Ti ), P2 (t, Ti ) with portfolio holdings ϕ1 and ϕ2 . Furthermore, let W be the
value of the portfolio, i.e.
W = ϕ1 × P1 + ϕ2 × P2
from which the j th − factor duration using Equation (61) immediately follows.
2 By hint 2 we have
1 ∂W 1 ∂P1 (t, Ti ) ∂P2 (t, Ti )
DW ,j = − = −ϕ1 × − ϕ2 ×
W ∂ζj W ∂ζj ∂ζj
1
= (ϕ1 × P1 × (Ti − t) × βij + ϕ2 × P2 × (Ti − t) × βij )
W
= w1 × D1,j (t, Ti ) × βij + w2 × D2,j (t, Ti ) × βij
ϕi ×Pi
where wi = W
, i = 1, 2
3 This result follows immediately from
m m
1 c X ∂Pz (t, Ti ) 1 c X ∂Pz (t, Ti ) ∂r (t, Ti )
Dc,j (t, T ) = − =−
Pc (t, T ) n i=1 ∂ζj Pc (t, T ) n i=1 ∂r (t, Ti ) ∂ζj
m m
c 1 X X
= (Ti − t) × Pz (t, Ti ) × βij = wTi × (Ti − t) × βij
n Pc (t, T ) i=1 i=1
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 165 / 223
Bond Price Sensitivity and Factor Duration
dPc (t, T ) = PcN (t, T ) − PcO (t, T ) = −Dc (t, T ) × PcO (t, T ) × dr (67)
Interpretation:
• An increase in the level of interest rates by 1 basis point will lead to a -0.098231%
decline in bond price.
• Likewise, an increase in the term spread by 1 basis point will lead to a -0.0472%
decline in bond price.
• Contrarily, an increase in curvature by 1 basis point will increase in the bond price
by 0.026564%
8.6
8.4
8.2
7.8
7.6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 30: Zero Rate Term Structure. Source: Federal Reserve Board.
Remarks:
• Large level shift (short end)
• Slope considerably steepened
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 168 / 223
Comparing Duration vs. Factor Duration
Let’s compare first the estimates for the duration as well as the estimates for the level,
slope and curvature factors.
Estimated Durations
Remarks:
• Level duration factor and standard duration are almost identical.
• Therefore, both methods will produce very similar predictions of changes in the
level of the term structure.
• Relatively large impact of curvature factor Dc,S indicates larges changes in slope.
dPc (t, T ) = PcN (t, T ) − PcO (t, T ) = −Dc (t, T ) × PcO (t, T ) × dr (71)
For the given change in the term structure in Figure (30), the bond price increases from
64.0859 to 70.0442 which is equivalent to a 9.30 % increase.
Important question?
• In order to make a fair comparison, how do we select the changes in
dζjt , j = {L, S, C }?
• Clearly, if we just assume dζjt = 0.01%, j = {L, S, C } this will lead to a very poor
approximation as not only the magnitude of the changes is off, but possibly also
the directions.
• For simplicity, we assume that we know the level, slope and curvature changes for
the two dates. dζLt = −0.0184, dζSt = 0.0161 and dζCt = 0.0010.
• Furthermore, the investor holds one unit of the bond, i.e. ϕ = 1.
Factor Dc Dc Exact
Table 10: Comparison of bond price change approximation. In order to compute the
bond price change using only duration we set ∆r = dζLt = −0.0184%. Factor duration
is given in Equation (70) and Dc stands for duration only as in Equation (71).
Remarks
• Even though we are using the exact change in interest rates level
∆r = dζLt = −0.0184%, using only duration yields a very poor estimate of the
expected change in bond price.
• This can be mainly attributed to the fact, that the slope has changed considerably
• If we only use a duration hedging approach (see Equation (45)) we obtain that
θ∗ = −1.1281
• In other words, the investor shorts -1.1281 units of the long term zero coupon
bond.
• Using the two factor duration hedging approach, we obtain the following optimal
portfolio holdings
θT∗S = 0.2721, θT∗L = −1.2246,
which implies that the investor goes long 0.2721 units of the short term zero
coupon bond and short −1.2246 units of the long term zero coupon bond.
Now lets compare the two hedging approaches under a number of different term
structure movements.
0.5
-0.5
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Figure 31: Change in bond portfolio value when using a duration hedging approach for various
term structure scenarios. The bond portfolio is V = Pc (t, TL ) + θ × Pz (t, TL ) where both bonds
have maturity TL = 10. Duration optimal portfolio holding is θ∗ = −1.1281.
0.5
-0.5
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Figure 32: Change in bond portfolio value when using a factor duration hedging approach for
various term structure scenarios. The bond portfolio is
V = Pc (t, TL ) + θTS × Pz (t, TS ) + θTL × Pz (t, TL ) where both long term bonds have maturity
TL = 10 years and the short term bond has maturity TS = 2 years. Optimal factor duration
∗ = 0.2721, θ ∗ = −1.2246.
portfolio holdings are θT
S LT
-0.5
-1
-1.5
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Figure 33: Comparison of factor duration vs duration only hedging. The (factor
duration) bond portfolio is V = Pc (t, TL ) + θTS × Pz (t, TS ) + θTL × Pz (t, TL ) where both
long term bonds have maturity TL = 10 years and the short term bond has maturity
TS = 2 years and the (duration only) bond portfolio is V = Pc (t, TL ) + θ × Pz (t, TL ).
Table 11: Unconditional correlation matrix between level, slope and curvature
factor over the time period January 1990 until September 2015.
• Thus, we see that the level and slope move in opposite directions.
• However, the factor duration approach does not take this joint movement into
account.
We are now going to discuss an other statistical method that yields independent factors
in order to improve on the management of interest rate risk.
• Note that the factor model in Equation (57) allows us to specify the factors
ζjtPC , j ∈ {1, . . . , m} freely.
• Now we are going to extend the analysis to incorporate the principal components
version of the factor model from above.
• We are going to label the first principal component as the level factor, the second
principal component as the slope factor and finally the third principal component
as the curvature factor.
• An open question at this point here is, how do we estimate the PCs from the yield
data?
• Note that the PC factors are not observable, i.e. latent.
eigenvector, i.e. v = (ϑ , ϑ , . . . , ϑ ) ∈ R .
i
n
i i1 i2 in
r
n
∆ζ1PC
X
t = ϑ1i ∆ it
i=1
r
∆ t = α + β1 × ∆ζ1PC
t + ϵt (76)
Note that since we are using the residuals from the first regression, we are now
going to use only that part of unexplained variation which is not already
captured by the first factor.
6 To obtain the estimated sensitivities β̂i2 for the second factor ζ2PC
t we run again
the following regression,
r
∆ t = α + β2 × ∆ζ2PC t + ϵt (77)
n
where β2 ∈ R is the factor loading coefficient of the second PC. Extract again
the estimated residuals from the regression equation (77) above.
7 In order to obtain the factor loadings β̂i2 for the third PC factor, we again set,
n
∆ζ3PC
X
t = ϑ3i ϵ̂it
i=1
Estimated PC Coefficients β̂ P C
1
0.5
Level
-0.5
Slope
Curvature
-1
2 4 6 8 10
Maturity
Figure 34: Estimated PC factors level, slope and curvature using US zero rates from
January 1990 - September 2015.
Remarks:
PC
• First factor seems to be almost flat, implying when ζ1t increases, then the entire
term structure moves up.
• This is why this factor is interpreted as the level factor.
• Contrarily to the factor duration we considered previously, the estimated sensitivity
βb1iPC is considerably smaller than the first factor duration estimate βb1i .
• Note that the second factor, labeled ’slope’, is negative at the short and positive at
the long end of the term structure indicating that its slope is positive. (similar to
the factor duration model above)
• As for the factor duration model from above, the curvature factor is also negative
at the short and long end but positive for medium maturities indicating that the
term structure becomes more curvy when this factor increases.
Mat 1Y 2Y 3Y 5Y 7Y 10Y
βc
i1 0.3206 0.4093 0.4436 0.4492 0.4252 0.3876
2
Radj. 0.7013 0.9064 0.9648 0.9751 0.9227 0.8226
Mat 1Y 2Y 3Y 5Y 7Y 10Y
βc
i1 0.3206 0.4093 0.4436 0.4492 0.4252 0.3876
βc
i2 -0.528 -0.306 -0.135 0.167 0.330 0.472
2
Radj. 0.973 0.981 0.978 0.988 0.989 0.978
βc
i1 0.3206 0.4093 0.4436 0.4492 0.4252 0.3876
βc
i2 -0.417 -0.348 -0.222 0.083 0.321 0.583
βc
i3 -0.666 0.246 0.452 0.249 -0.034 -0.478
2
Radj. 0.999 0.995 0.997 0.994 0.994 0.995
• Lastly, adding the third PC factor shows that is now close to one, meaning that
almost 100% of the variation in yields is explained by the first three PCs.
• The estimated coefficients show that when the third PC factor increases, it lowers
the short and long end of the term structure but raises the yields at medium
maturities, i.e. this factor bends the term structure.
• All coefficients are highly significant. Note that the SEs of the first and second PC
become even smaller compared to the SEs in Table 12 and 13.
• The main difference between the PCA and the duration factor model is that for
the former, the factors (by construction) are independent, since the PCs form an
uncorrelated orthogonal basis set of vectors.
• Both methods explain almost all the variation in the term structure, especially the
three factor models.
• Comparing the one factor models, the factor duration model explains the data
2
better at the short end (1 to 3 years, average Radj. = 0.8653 compared to
2
Radj. = 0.8570 for the PCA factor model.)
• Adding the slope factor we see that except for the one year maturity yield, the
PCA factor model exhibits higher explanatory power compared to the duration
factor model.
• Lastly, adding the curvature factor, the PCA factor model outperforms the
duration factor model at any maturity.
• Note that the SEs for the PCA factor model are always smaller than the SEs for
the duration factor model.
9/26/2008 0.21% 0.87% 1.54% 1.81% 2.11% 2.38% 3.05% 3.41% 3.85%
9/10/2008 1.58% 1.65% 1.87% 2.06% 2.22% 2.42% 2.91% 3.23% 3.65%
8/25/2008 1.66% 1.74% 1.96% 2.12% 2.33% 2.62% 3.04% 3.36% 3.79%
8/11/2008 1.77% 1.87% 2.05% 2.27% 2.56% 2.84% 3.27% 3.57% 3.99%
7/25/2008 1.72% 1.75% 1.95% 2.35% 2.70% 3.01% 3.45% 3.73% 4.13%
7/10/2008 1.48% 1.67% 2.01% 2.20% 2.44% 2.72% 3.10% 3.40% 3.83%
6/25/2008 1.49% 1.81% 2.22% 2.48% 2.82% 3.11% 3.54% 3.78% 4.12%
6/10/2008 2.00% 2.02% 2.24% 2.53% 2.91% 3.20% 3.54% 3.77% 4.11%
1Y 2Y 3Y 4Y 5Y 6Y 7Y 8Y 9Y 10 Y
r 4.088 3.957 4.002 4.1012 4.204 4.2852 4.35 4.4115 4.4825 4.576
β̂L 0.9925 1.0119 1.0238 1.0117 0.9925 0.9860 0.9903 0.9977 1.0010 0.9925
β̂S -0.5224 -0.4561 -0.3314 -0.1770 -0.0224 0.1088 0.2175 0.3106 0.3949 0.4776
β̂C -0.2893 0.1052 0.2188 0.2419 0.2107 0.1270 0.0107 -0.1137 -0.2218 -0.2893
Consider a 4% Coupon (paid annually) bond with time to maturity 10 years. Compute
the following
(a) The price of the bond.
(b) The duration of the bond.
(c) The level factor duration.
(d) The slope factor duration.
(e) The curvature factor duration.
Felix Matthys Fixed Income ITAM 202 / 223
Solution (Duration and Factor Duration)
In order to compute the bond price, we need to extract the discount factors Z (t, Ti ) for
i = 1, . . . , n. Since we use annual rates we have
1
Z (t, Ti ) = , i = 1, . . . , n
(1 + r (t, Ti ))(Ti −t)
and therefore we obtain
1Y 2Y 3Y 4Y 5Y 6Y 7Y 8Y 9Y 10 Y
Z (t, Ti ) 0.9607 0.9253 0.8889 0.8515 0.8139 0.7774 0.7423 0.7080 0.6739 0.6393
50 -0.6
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Yield-to-Maturity y Yield-to-Maturity y
Remarks:
• Percentage decline in Bond with high coupon ch , when yield to maturity increases
is always below loss of bond with low coupon cl . (For any yield to maturity, the
blue line of cl bond is always below the red line of ch bond)
• The reason for this follows from the fact that the bod with higher coupon, having
larger cash flows, returns a higher proportion of value earlier than the bond with
low coupon. This implies that that the high coupon bond is less exposed to the
the higher compounding associated with the new discount factor.
• In other words, high coupon bonds are less sensitive to changes in the term
structure of interest rates!
0 -0.8
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Yield-to-Maturity y Yield-to-Maturity y
Remarks:
• The longer the maturity of a bond, the more sensitive is it’s price to a change in
interest rates. (For any yield to maturity, the red line of 10-year bond is always
below the blue line of 5-year bond)
• The price sensitivity of any bond increases with it’s maturity, but the increase
occurs at a decreasing rate. For example, a 10-year bond is much more sensitive
to changes in the term structure than a 1-year bond. However, a 30-year bond is
only slightly more sensitive than a 20-year bond.
• For a given change in a bond’s YTM, the percentage loss of the resulting change
in the bond’s price is lower the higher the coupon rate. Thus for two bonds with
coupon rate ch > cl we have,
∂Pch (t, T ) ∂Pcl (t, T )
/Pch (t, T ) < /Pcl (t, T ) , ∀cl < ch
∂y ∂y
The higher the coupon rate c the less sensitive is the bond price.
• For a given absolute change in a bond’s YTM, the magnitude of the price increase
caused by a decrease in yield is greater than the price decrease caused by an
increase in yield.
∂Pc (t, T ) ∂Pc (t, T )
> , ∀y1 < y2
∂y y =y1 ∂y y =y2
In other words, the bond price is more sensitive to changes at the short-end yield
curve (y1 ) as opposed to changes at long-end yield curve (y2 ).
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• More formally speaking, if we take a coupon bond with n-annual payments and
maturity T .
• Thus, there are n × T = m payments in total and T1 , · · · , Tm = T are the coupon
payment dates.
• Let j be the coupon date such Tj < Dc < Tj+1 the last coupon payment dates just
before (Tj ) and just after (Tj+1 ) the duration date.
To balance the payments, we must have that the duration Dc (t, T ) is the real number
that solves,
j m
X c i X c i
× Z (t, t + i/n) Dc (t, T ) − = × Z (t, t + i/n) − Dc (t, T ) (78)
i=1
n n i=j+1
n n
i i
where the term in brackets on either side, i.e. Dc (t, T ) − n
and n
− Dc (t, T ) measure
’distance’ to the duration date.
• Because of this property, duration of a coupon bond can be interpreted as the time
period a bond needs to be held, in order to get back the invested amount.
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y −(Ti −t)
" Pm #
2
1 i=1 (Ti − t) c/n 1 + n 2
=− − DMD (79)
1 + yn
nPc
we obtain for the last term in (79) that the bracket term is
Pm y −(Ti −t) m m
− t)2 c/n 1 +
i=1 (Ti
X X
n
= (Ti − t)2 wi − DMc
2
= wi ((Ti − t) − DMc )2
nPc i=1 i=1
−(Ti −t)n
Intuitively, given the discount factor Z (t, Ti ) = 1 + yn , an increase in y will
discount cash flows stronger, which are further in the future, and thus leading to a
decline in duration. Go Back
N c q − q T ×n 1
Pc (t, T ) = n×T
+ , q= y
[1 + y /n] n 1−q 1+ n
The rewriting Equation (81), and using the convergence result in (82) we obtain,
T ×n T ×n
c X c X
nDMc (t, T )Pc (t, T ) = i × q i + Nq n×T = q i × q i−1 + Nq n×T
n i=1 n i=1
Finally, with the limit result in (83) and using the bond price limit in (80) we can
express the limit, as maturity T goes to infinity of the Macaulay duration as
c q
1 n 1−q 2 1 1
lim DMc (t, T ) = c q =
T →∞ n n 1−q
n1−q
900000
800000 0.65
700000
600000 0.6
500000
400000 0.55
300000
200000 0.5
100000
0 0.45
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 35: Wealth Wt and portfolio wt evolution based on average interest rate r¯t
Observation
• Average Terminal Wealth is always greater than zero.
• No variability in either Wt and wt
100
98
95
90
97.5
85
80 97
75
96.5
70
65
96
60
55 95.5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 36: Short - and long term bond price evolution based on based on average
interest rate r¯t
Observation:
• Price of short term bond decreases over time because interest rates approach long
run level θ > r0
16
12
14
10
12
10 8
8 6
6
4
4
2
2
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Payment Dates Payment Dates
Figure 37: Short - and long term bond duration evolution based on average interest rate
r¯t
Observation:
• Smooth monotone decline of duration over time.
Now r¯ is just one number from which we can compute the average w
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