In both the primary and many of the ancillary criteria that determine buy/sell signals, interest rate projections play an important role. Whenstocks are priced at reasonable or discounted levels relative to historical fundamental norms, lowering interest rates can have a strong positive effect. Conversely, especially when stocks are overvalued relative to fundamentals, higher interest rates can be shown to have a very negative effecton stock pricing.
The effect on bonds (and bond funds) resulting from interest rate changes are more straightforward than stock pricing relationships because the effect on stocks at any given time depends on stock price levels. The effect on bonds is direct: Lower rates create higher bond prices, and higher rates result in lower bond prices. The effect of rate changes on bond prices can be more dramatic than many investors realize, with the greater price shifts associated with longer maturities. Read the rest of this entry »
Currency swap: Contract that commits two counterparties to exchange streams of interest payments in different currencies for an agreed period of time and to exchange principal amounts in different currencies at a pre-agreed exchange rate at maturity.
A currency swap has three stages:
An initial exchange of principal: the two counterparties exchange principal amounts at an agreed exchange rate. This can be a notional exchange since its purpose is to establish the principal amounts as a reference point for the calculation of interest payments and the re-exchange of the principal amounts.
Exchange of interest payments on agreed dates based on outstanding principal amounts and agreed fixed interest rates.
- Re-exchange of the principal amounts at a predetermined exchange rate so the parties end up with their original currencies.
- Again this may be done to hedge risk, to speculate on changes in exchange rates, or to attempt to lower the cost of borrowing by borrowing in the currency in which the most favourable interest rates are available and then swapping into the currency that the firm needs to carry out its business. Whether this will be cheaper will depend among other things on the bid—offer spread.
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A eurobond is a debt security handled internationally by syndicates, groups of bankers and/or brokers who underwrite and distribute new issues of securities or large blocks of outstanding issues. It is typically in bearer (non-registered form) and is issued outside the country of the currency in which it is denominated.
Borrowers and lenders are spread around the world, while the intermediaries are spread across Europe, with the majority of business being done from London. The market was founded in the early 1960s and has provided a competitive source of funding for borrowers who can tap discreet but important sources of finance. Japanese banks, pension funds and insurance companies have become important lenders in recent years and there are still plenty of wealthy individuals who prefer the anonymity offered by bearer securities. The eurobond market is the world’s second largest securities market after the US bond market in terms of trading volume and the third largest after the US and Japanese bond markets in terms of debt outstanding. Read the rest of this entry »
A major defence industry supplier, Death Mines plc, wishes to borrow £1 million for twelve years at a fixed interest rate to finance a new investment project. It could do so by issuing a straight eurobond but, as it is not well known in the market and does not have a high credit risk rating, would have to pay a coupon of 8 per cent which it regards as too high. The firm’s own bank is willing to lend Death Mines the required amount via a one-year floating rate note at a rate of 2 per cent over LIBOR, currently at 3.6 per cent.
Clearly, the floating rate loan is much cheaper at the moment, but LIBOR could easily rise over the period of the loan to such a level that Death Mines would finish up losing on the project. Thus, it enters into a contract with a swap bank, Border International, to pay to it 5 per cent on the principal, receiving in exchange LIBOR.
The position of Death Mines now is:
Pays to its own bank LIBOR + 2 per cent
Pays to Border 5 per cent
Receives from Border LIBOR
Net position — fixed rate loan at 7 per cent Read the rest of this entry »
Here we review some of the terminology used in the swaps market and explain how swaps are quoted. The date that the counterparties commit to the swap is called the trade date. The date that the swap begins accruing interest is called the effective date, and the date that the swap stops accruing interest is called the maturity date.
Although our illustrations assume that the timing of the cash flows for both the fixed-rate payer and floating-rate payer will be the same, this is rarely the case in a swap. In fact, an agreement may call for the fixed-rate payer to make payments annually but the floating-rate payer to make payments more frequently (semiannually or quarterly). Also, the way in which interest accrues on each leg of the transaction differs, because there are several day-count conventions in the fixed-income markets. Read the rest of this entry »
Once the swap transaction is completed, changes in market interest rates will change the payments of the floating-rate side of the swap. The value of an interest rate swap is the difference between the present value of the payments of the two sides of the swap. The three-month LIBOR forward rates from the current Eurodollar CD futures contracts are used to (1) calculate the floating-rate payments and (2) determine the discount factors at which to calculate the present value of the payments.
To illustrate this, consider the three-year swap used to demonstrate how to calculate the swap rate. Suppose that one year later, interest rates change as shown in Columns (4) and (6) in Exhibit 25-9. Column (4) shows the current three-month LIBOR. In Column (5) are the Eurodollar CD futures prices for each period. These rates are used to compute the forward rates in Column (6). Note that the interest rates have increased one year later since the rates in Exhibit 25-9 . Read the rest of this entry »
Finally, the structure of the currency markets may work against elimination of the forward rate bias. Note that the forward rates depend only on the spot rate and the difference in interest rates. For arbitrage reasons, the forward rate cannot depend on anything else (see the discussion of interest rate parity in “Description,” above). However, an exchange rate between two currencies reflects the relative state of the two economies. If the U.S. economy is expected to do better than the Japanese economy, then the spot exchange rate will reflect that. Any changes in growth expectations will promptly cause a change in the spot exchange rate and thereby in the forward exchange rate. For example, the dollar strengthened from 1995 to 2000 because of the relative strength of the U.S. economy. During 2002 and early part of 2003, when expectations about U.S. economic growth were constantly revised downward, the dollar kept losing ground to other currencies. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on February 9th, 2008 in IMF | 3 Comments »
Whatever the explanation for the forward rate bias and whatever the reason for its persistence, we hope that the forward rate bias will continue to exist well into the future. Armed with this evidence, how can tradable profits be realized? The easiest way to trade the forward rate bias is to use currency futures. Futures contracts can be easily bought or short-sold, are easy to cancel, and have low trading costs. On the other hand, forward contracts are restrictive and difficult to cancel. The pricing of forward contracts and futures contracts is almost identical, so the trading profits will also be equivalent. The trading strategy consists of buying the currency with the highest interest rate and unwinding the position a month later. A one-month holding period is chosen because the forward rate bias is most prominent for shorter periods. The following steps are taken in choosing and executing the strategy. Read the rest of this entry »
