Tail risk

BP crisis pushes Big Oil further into deep water

As thousands of barrels of oil continue to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, energy giant BP has seen its bond spreads widen to unprecedented levels. What will be the implications for Big Oil, and can investors factor in tail risks of this magnitude?

What does VAR mean in 2010?

Value-at-risk figures fell across the industry in 2009, while exceptions dropped significantly from levels in 2007 and 2008. But discussion over what VAR figures actually show and how the numbers are interpreted by senior management continues. By…

A sting in the tail

After recent financial turmoil, market participants are thinking much more rigorously about ways to protect themselves against the possibility of rare but extreme events. However, effectively hedging tail risk is not straightforward. By Mark Pengelly

Rethinking (operational) risk management

For operational risk managers to really make a difference to their firms' fortunes, they must be willing to get their hands dirty and face facts, no matter how scary the facts may be, says Sergio Scandizzo, in the second of a two-part series

Risk reallocation

The originate-and-distribute model offered a means for banks to offload credit risk from their balance sheets and distribute it to investors. But Andrew Haldane and Lewis Webber of the Bank of England argue this risk was often passed on to those least…

CRO Forum study released

Industry body the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Forum, which consists of the chief risk officers of Europe's leading insurers, is advancing the case for the use of proprietary internal models under Solvency II with the publication of a new in-depth report.

Generalising universal performance measures

Performance and risk measurement are fundamental quantitative activities in finance, andnew ways of measuring them are always of interest. A recently proposed procedure is theuniversal performance measure. Theofanis Darsinos and Stephen Satchell show…

How to spot a VaR cheat

Traders can use weaknesses in VaR measurement to make it appear that they are not taking any risks. Brett Humphreys exposes how easily this can be done

Contributions to credit risk

Optimisation of credit portfolios requires that risk contributions be quantified. However, there has been disagreement over which of three popular tail risk measures should be used. Here, Alexandre Kurth and Dirk Tasche offer a way forward, showing how…

Basel's CDO solution

As the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision continues its stately progress towards a revised capital Accord, one area remains under debate: the proposed capital rules for asset securitisations.

Contributions to credit risk

Optimisation of credit portfolios requires that risk contributions be quantified. However, there has been disagreement over which of three popular tail risk measures should be used. Here, Alexandre Kurth and Dirk Tasche offer a way forward, showing how…

What causes crashes?

Are large market events caused by easily identifiable exogenous shocks such as major newsevents, or can they occur endogenously, without apparent external cause, as an inherent propertyof the market itself? Here, Didier Sornette, Yannick Malevergne and…

Extreme forex moves

What is the appropriate statistical description of tail risk in a market portfolio? In the context offoreign exchange, Peter Blum and Michel Dacorogna address this problem using extreme valuetheory. Using 20 years of data, they estimate parameters for an…

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