Fixed Income Flashcards
Yield to Maturity (YTM)
- Normally quoted on options free bonds
- It’s the Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
Promised yield if these 3 conditions are met:
1. Hold the bond to maturity
2. Every coupon received is reinvested at the same YTM over the life of the bond
3. The yield curve is flat over the life of the bond.
Other Yields
Yield to Call (YTC): Yield on a callable bond. The issuer buys the call option.
Yield to Worst (YTW):
* The lower of the YTC and the YTM normally quoted for a municipal bond because interest is tax-free.
* Only the interest income is tax-free, the capital appreciation is taxable.
Yield to Put: Yield on a puttable bond. The buyer has the right to put back.
Spot Rates
- A series discount rates, known as the spot yield curve or spot yield.
- Appliable to default free “credit risk-free” bonds “treasuries” and other zero-coupon securities.
- On-the-Run Securities: “newly issued” treasuries bonds they are the most liquid accurately price, and wanted.
- Off-the-Run Securities: Look at yields in the market and combine them with other Off-the-Run Securities treasuries; not traded, less liquid, and have many yield curves
Zero Volatility Spread (ZVS)
Provides Compensation for
* Additional Credit Risk: any additional above treasuries (default free)
* Additional Liquidity Risk: any additional above treasuries (are more liquid)
* Option Risk: Option risk is zero because you are dealing with option free bonds
Options Adjusted Yield (OAS)
- Bond with an embedded option interest rate will affect cash flows
- Option Adjusted Yield = 1 + Spot rate + OAS
- A spread in basis points that is added to the treasury spot rate curve in order to discount it’s future cash flows of a bond with an embedded option to its current market price
- Not a trial-and-error process its path specific due to the intertest rate moves
- Calculated using MCS
Compensates for:
* Additional credit and liquidity risk over a treasuries
* Additional modeling risk (not option risk) because the options have been removed
If the Market is Very Violate the OAS:
* Decreases: for callable bonds the option will increase and will cause the OAS to decrease
* Increases: for puttable bonds
Macaulay Duration
- “Unadjusted Duration”
- Weighted average period of time, which the cash flows of a bond will accrue to the investor.
- Macaulay Duration is normally in years
- Macaulay Duration is normally less that maturity because the bond might be able to call back “repurchase”.
- Only time that Macaulay Duration will be the same as maturity is for a zero-coupon bond.
Modified Duration
- “Adjusted Duration” Associated with option free bonds
- Can be calculate by the Macaulay Duration to adjust the time period
- A ±1% change in yields will cause the bonds price to change by ±1% (± are inverse)
Duration
- Sensitivity to an asset price to a change in interest rates
- Bond prices rise greater than bond prices decline
- When interest rates decline the increase will be greater, than an interest rate increase
- Is a linear interpretation
Explanation of a Bond Price
- Will only be correct if there is a parallel shift
- Duration explains a small change in interest rates
- Convexity explains a large change in interest rates
Parallel Shift
- A one-time instantaneous parallel shift in the yield curve
- All interest rates (short or long) changes by the same amount percentage wise
- Downward parallel shift is bad
- Upward parallel shift is good
Effective Duration
- Appropriate measures for duration and convexity for bonds with embedded options
- Recently the terminology is being used for all bonds
- For any option-free bond should have the same as their modified and Macaulay durations
Rolls of Fixed income as an Asset Class in a Portfolio
- Diversification
- Regular Cash Flow Stream
- Potential Inflation Hedge
Defeasing
Reducing or eliminating the liability by having a dedicated fixed-income portfolio matches timing of coupons and maturities with expected liability amounts.
Credit Event
Failure to make interest or principal payments on schedule, default, bankruptcy, etc.
Inflation hedge
- A fixed rate normal bond does not provide a hedge against inflation
There are 2-Types of Bonds:
* Inflation-Linked Bonds: (real return, capital index) “TIPS” direct protection against inflation for both the par value and the coupon.
* Floating-Rate Coupon Bond: The coupon rate is inflation protected however the principal is not
Liability-Based Mandates
- Managed to generate future cash inflows that exactly match or otherwise cover expected future cash outflows (liability payments).
- May also be called asset/liability management (ALM) or liability-driven investments (LDIs).
Immunization
Structuring and managing the portfolio to minimize the difference between the value of liabilities and the offsetting assets.
There are 2 immunization strategies:
* Cash flow matching
* Duration matching
Duration Matching
- The portfolio matches as closely to the duration of the liability.
- Requirement 1: Same duration for the asset and liability portfolios.
- Requirement 2: Equal present value of the asset and liability portfolios at the current interest rate level.
- Protects aganist parallel shifts in the yield curve it does not protect against non-parallel changes (structural risks).
Cash Flow Matching
- Coupon and principal repayments are exactly structured to make future liability payouts, eliminating the need for reinvestment (eliminating reinvestment risk).
- Usually falls short of as it is difficult to find the exact securities required at an acceptable cost.
Total Return Mandates
- Pure indexing: The manager replicates the benchmark to attempt zero tracking error.
- Enhanced indexing: Closely tracks the benchmark’s risk factor exposures, but allows some variationto achieve modest outperformance (0.5% or less).
- Active management: Allows greater factor mismatches to attempt higher active return (>0.5%), but incurs much greater management fees and transaction costs.
Issues of Fixed Income
- Bond Markets are not as active; thus, it can result in illiquidity and large bid-ask spreads.
- The contribution of a single bond to the overall market is small
- There can be different and unique issues from the same issuer.
- Bonds trade OTC this increases the costs; find a counterparty, information much harder to follow
- When an issuer puts out a new issue the older issues’ liquidity will decrease
Liquidity
- On the run high quality sovereign debt is very liquid when issued, but less as it goes off-the-run
- Corporate bonds have a wide variety in terms of quality, liquidity, and size
- As the quality declines, liquidity declines, and the bid-ask spread increases
- Small issue size is less liquid than higher issue ones as it takes the same amount to analyze
Expected Fixed Income Return Components
- Current Yield: “Income Yield” takes into account the market price but not reinvestment
- Roll Down Return: Projection of the bond price in the portfolio assuming yield curve remains the same
- Expected Price Change: The investor change in yield and spread over the time period.
- Credit Loss: Estimating the probability of default and times the expected loss severity
- Currency Gain/Loss: Foreign currency in domestic currency-terms
Rolling Yield = Current Yield + Roll Down Return
General Assumptions
- A positively-sloped yield curve unless stated otherwise
- As maturity goes up so do the yields
- As maturity goes down so do the bond yields, but the price of the bond will go higher.
- Yield curve that is flat and will remain unchanged
- Bond at a Premium: The projected price will be lower at maturity and/or expected
- Bond at a Discount: The projected price will be higher at maturity and/or expected