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CFA Level II Chartered Financial Analyst Questions 53–57 (page: 72)

Martha Garret, CFA, manages fixed income portfolios for Jones Brothers, Inc. (JBI). JBI has been in the portfolio management business for over 23 years and provides investors with access to actively managed equity and fixed-income portfolios. All of JBI's fixed-income portfolios are constructed using U.S. debt instruments. Garret's primary portfolio responsibilities are the Quasar Fund and the Nova Fund, both of which are long fixed-income portfolios consisting of Treasury securities in all maturity ranges. The Quasar Fund holdings as of March 15 are provided in Exhibit 1. A comparison of key rate durations for the Quasar Fund and Nova Fund is provided in Exhibit 2.





Of particular importance to Garret and her colleagues is the degree of interest rate risk exposure unique to each portfolio under JBI's management. Driving the increased awareness of the portfolios' interest rate exposure is the double digit growth in assets under management that JBI's fixed-income portfolios have experienced in the last five years. Interest in the company's fixed-income portfolios continues to grow and as a result, all portfolio managers are required to attend weekly meetings to discuss key portfolio risk factors. At the last meeting, Miranda Walsh, a principal at JBI, made the following comments:

"The variance of daily interest rate changes has been trending higher over the last three months leading us to believe that a period of high volatility is approaching in the next twelve to eighteen months. However, the reliability is questionable since the volatility estimates were derived using an option pricing model, which assumes constant interest rates."

"Also, the Treasury spot rate curve currently has a similar shape to the yield curve on Treasury coupon securities, which, according to the market segmentation theory of interest rate term structure, indicates a relatively high level of demand from investors for intermediate term securities. Overzealous trading by investors unwilling to move into other maturity ranges may create mispricing and opportunities for arbitrage."

After the meeting, Walsh and JBI's other principals met to discuss a new international portfolio opportunity. At Walsh's suggestion, the principals selected Garret as the lead portfolio manager for the new fund, which will be titled the Atlantic Fund. One of the other portfolio managers, Greg Terry, CFA, suggested to Garret that she utilize the LIBOR swap curve as a benchmark for the Atlantic fund rather than using local government yield curves. Terry justifies his suggestion by claiming that "the lack of government regulation in the swap market makes swap rates and curves directly comparable between different countries despite fewer maturity points with which to construct the curve as compared to a government yield curve. Furthermore, credit risk in the swap curves of various countries is similar, thus avoiding the complications associated with different levels of sovereign risk embedded in government yield curves.” Intrigued by the idea of using the swap curve, Garret has her assistant begin gathering a range of current and forward LIBOR rates.

Evaluate Walsh's comments regarding the method used to estimate the expected increase in interest rate volatility and the term structure of interest rates.

Martha Garret, CFA, manages fixed income portfolios for Jones Brothers, Inc. (JBI). JBI has been in the portfolio management business for over 23 years and provides investors with access to actively managed equity and fixed-income portfolios. All of JBI's fixed-income portfolios are constructed using U.S. debt instruments. Garret's primary portfolio responsibilities are the Quasar Fund and the Nova Fund, both of which are long fixed-income portfolios consisting of Treasury securities in all maturity ranges. The Quasar Fund holdings as of March 15 are provided in Exhibit 1. A comparison of key rate durations for the Quasar Fund and Nova Fund is provided in Exhibit 2.





Of particular importance to Garret and her colleagues is the degree of interest rate risk exposure unique to each portfolio under JBI's management. Driving the increased awareness of the portfolios' interest rate exposure is the double digit growth in assets under management that JBI's fixed-income portfolios have experienced in the last five years. Interest in the company's fixed- income portfolios continues to grow and as a result, all portfolio managers are required to attend weekly meetings to discuss key portfolio risk factors. At the last meeting, Miranda Walsh, a principal at JBI, made the following comments:

"The variance of daily interest rate changes has been trending higher over the last three months leading us to believe that a period of high volatility is approaching in the next twelve to eighteen months. However, the reliability is questionable since the volatility estimates were derived using an option pricing model, which assumes constant interest rates."

"Also, the Treasury spot rate curve currently has a similar shape to the yield curve on Treasury coupon securities, which, according to the market segmentation theory of interest rate term structure, indicates a relatively high level of demand from investors for intermediate term securities. Overzealous trading by investors unwilling to move into other maturity ranges may create mispricing and opportunities for arbitrage."

After the meeting, Walsh and JBI's other principals met to discuss a new international portfolio opportunity. At Walsh's suggestion, the principals selected Garret as the lead portfolio manager for the new fund, which will be titled the Atlantic Fund. One of the other portfolio managers, Greg Terry, CFA, suggested to Garret that she utilize the LIBOR swap curve as a benchmark for the Atlantic fund rather than using local government yield curves. Terry justifies his suggestion by claiming that "the lack of government regulation in the swap market makes swap rates and curves directly comparable between different countries despite fewer maturity points with which to construct the curve as compared to a government yield curve. Furthermore, credit risk in the swap curves of various countries is similar, thus avoiding the complications associated with different levels of sovereign risk embedded in government yield curves.” Intrigued by the idea of using the swap curve, Garret has her assistant begin gathering a range of current and forward LIBOR rates.
Which of the following best evaluates Terry's justification for using the swap curve as the benchmark for the Atlantic Fund? Terry's justification is:

Mary Pierce, CFA, has just joined The James Group as a fixed income security analyst. Pierce has taken over for Katy Williams, who left The James Group to start her own investment firm. Pierce has been reviewing Williams's files, which include data on a number of securities that Williams had been reviewing.

The first file had information on several different asset-backed securities. A summary schedule that Williams had prepared is shown in Exhibit 1.

Exhibit 1: Summary Schedule


The second file included the following schedule of information relating to a specific CMO that Williams had been considering. Exhibit 2 reflects the results of a Monte Carlo simulation based on 15% volatility of interest rates. This security is still available, and Pierce needs to evaluate the investment merit of any or all of the listed tranches.




A third file contained notes Williams had taken at a seminar a couple of months ago on valuing various types of asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. These notes included the following comments that Pierce found interesting:

"Cash flow yield (CFY) is one method of valuing mortgage-backed securities. An advantage of the CFY is that it does not rely on any specific prepayment assumptions. An important weakness of CFY is the assumption that interim cash flows will be reinvested at the CFY. This is rarely true for mortgage-backed securities."

"Cash flow duration is similar to effective duration, but its weakness is that it fails to fully account for changes in prepayment rates as cash flow yields change. Empirical duration suffers two disadvantages as a measure of interest rate exposure: reliance on theoretical formulas and reliance on historical pricing data that may not exist for many mortgage-backed securities."

"The recent increase in the default rate for subprime adjustable rate mortgages can be traced to the structure of these loans. The negative amortization feature of these loans basically gave the borrower an at-the-money call option on their property. Once the property decreased in value, this call option was worthless, and the borrower had no incentive to make any additional payments."

Based on Williams's summary information on asset-backed securities. Pierce has decided to purchase the securities based on the LL Home Equity Loans because these securities offered the highest nominal spread, and therefore the best return. Williams believes the risk of the ABS securities is similar based on their credit ratings. Pierce's purchase decision is:

Mary Pierce, CFA, has just joined The James Group as a fixed income security analyst. Pierce has taken over for Katy Williams, who left The James Group to start her own investment firm. Pierce has been reviewing Williams's files, which include data on a number of securities that Williams had been reviewing.
The first file had information on several different asset-backed securities. A summary schedule that Williams had prepared is shown in Exhibit 1.
Exhibit 1: Summary Schedule


The second file included the following schedule of information relating to a specific CMO that Williams had been considering. Exhibit 2 reflects the results of a Monte Carlo simulation based on 15% volatility of interest rates. This security is still available, and Pierce needs to evaluate the investment merit of any or all of the listed tranches.



A third file contained notes Williams had taken at a seminar a couple of months ago on valuing various types of asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. These notes included the following comments that Pierce found interesting:

"Cash flow yield (CFY) is one method of valuing mortgage-backed securities. An advantage of the CFY is that it does not rely on any specific prepayment assumptions. An important weakness of CFY is the assumption that interim cash flows will be reinvested at the CFY. This is rarely true for mortgage-backed securities."

"Cash flow duration is similar to effective duration, but its weakness is that it fails to fully account for changes in prepayment rates as cash flow yields change. Empirical duration suffers two disadvantages as a measure of interest rate exposure: reliance on theoretical formulas and reliance on historical pricing data that may not exist for many mortgage-backed securities."

"The recent increase in the default rate for subprime adjustable rate mortgages can be traced to the structure of these loans. The negative amortization feature of these loans basically gave the borrower an at-the-money call option on their property. Once the property decreased in value, this call option was worthless, and the borrower had no incentive to make any additional payments."

Pierce is analyzing the data related to the CMO tranches. Based only on the information in Exhibit 2, the option cost (in bp) of the PAC C tranche is:

Mary Pierce, CFA, has just joined The James Group as a fixed income security analyst. Pierce has taken over for Katy Williams, who left The James Group to start her own investment firm. Pierce has been reviewing Williams's files, which include data on a number of securities that Williams had been reviewing.
The first file had information on several different asset-backed securities. A summary schedule that Williams had prepared is shown in Exhibit 1.
Exhibit 1: Summary Schedule


The second file included the following schedule of information relating to a specific CMO that Williams had been considering. Exhibit 2 reflects the results of a Monte Carlo simulation based on 15% volatility of interest rates. This security is still available, and Pierce needs to evaluate the investment merit of any or all of the listed tranches.



A third file contained notes Williams had taken at a seminar a couple of months ago on valuing various types of asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. These notes included the following comments that Pierce found interesting:

"Cash flow yield (CFY) is one method of valuing mortgage-backed securities. An advantage of the CFY is that it does not rely on any specific prepayment assumptions. An important weakness of CFY is the assumption that interim cash flows will be reinvested at the CFY. This is rarely true for mortgage-backed securities."

"Cash flow duration is similar to effective duration, but its weakness is that it fails to fully account for changes in prepayment rates as cash flow yields change. Empirical duration suffers two disadvantages as a measure of interest rate exposure: reliance on theoretical formulas and reliance on historical pricing data that may not exist for many mortgage-backed securities."

"The recent increase in the default rate for subprime adjustable rate mortgages can be traced to the structure of these loans. The negative amortization feature of these loans basically gave the borrower an at-the-money call option on their property. Once the property decreased in value, this call option was worthless, and the borrower had no incentive to make any additional payments."

Pierce realizes that she will need to do a more in-depth analysis, but based only on the information in Williams's CMO table, she can conclude that: