Technical paper
How good is your information?
Fraud, opaque accounting practices and incomplete data are unavoidable. Butare they factored into a credit risk forecast? An emerging class of models doesthe job by assuming incomplete information. Barra's Lisa Goldberg explains.
Trading techniques
Rankings 2004
Storage strategies
Rankings 2004
Corridor variance swaps
This article studies a recent variation of a variance swap called a corridor variance swap (CVS). For this swap, returns are not counted in the realised variance calculation if the reference index level is outside some specified corridor. CVSs allow…
What’s a basket worth?
Peter Laurence and Tai-Ho Wang take a significant step in the valuation of basket options with positive and fixed weights. These model all index options, price, cap or equal weighted. Departing from the usual Black-Scholes framework, the authors provide…
Come together
market graphics
Bringing credit portfolio modelling to maturity
Michael Barco shows how to perform mark-to-market credit portfolio modelling by extendingthe well-known saddle-point technique, introducing spread and recovery rate volatility. Hethen tests his results on a fictitious portfolio, showing how asset…
Sensible and efficient capital allocation for credit portfolios
Michael Kalkbrener, Hans Lotter and Ludger Overbeck construct a new approach to economiccapital allocation, showing that three axioms uniquely determine a capital allocation scheme,and, more importantly, that any allocation satisfying the axioms is…
’Tis the season...
Abstract: Aurelian Tröndle presents a general framework for modelling prices of storable and non-storableenergy assets, which sheds light on different market fundamentals, and showshow energy market volatility is seasonal and anything but stable. The…
Bringing credit portfolio modelling to maturity
Michael Barco shows how to perform mark-to-market credit portfolio modelling by extending the well-known saddle-point technique, introducing spread and recovery rate volatility. He then tests his results on a fictitious portfolio, showing how asset…
Calculating transfer risk using Monte Carlo
Marco van der Burgt constructs a model of emerging market transfer risk based on a country’s foreign exchange reserves that is combined with facility-dependent risk factors that determine counterparty exposure in the event of a moratorium. He then…
Mark up the scorecard
Sergio Scandizzo and Roberto Setola explore the application of a scorecard approach to the measurement of operational risk, assessing both its reliability as a risk-management tool and the practicalities of its implementation.
Dissecting risk
New frontiers
Benchmarking asset correlations
Basel II stipulates that the asset correlation to be used in calibration of obligor risk weights is20%. Here, Alfred Hamerle, Thilo Liebig and Daniel Rösch use a parametric model to empirically obtain asset correlations from a large database of…
Economic capital – how much do you really need?
Economic capital is becoming the language of risk. While market, credit and operational risk have different determinants and use different methodologies, the levels of risk can all be summarised in a common dimension – the amount of economic capital…
Understanding the expected loss debate
The final draft of the new global Accord on bank regulatory capital – Basel II – has been delayed. A critical and unresolved issue is whether banks should include expected losses in their measure of credit risk. The IMF's Paul Kupiec reports on efforts…