Joan Nicholson, CFA, and Kim Fluellen, CFA, sit on the risk management committee for Thomasville Asset Management. Although Thomasville manages the majority of its investable assets, it also utilizes outside firms for special situations such as market neutral and convertible arbitrage strategies. Thomasville has hired a hedge fund, Boston Advisors, for both of these strategies. The managers for the Boston Advisors funds are Frank Amato, CFA, and Joseph Garvin, CFA. Amato uses a market neutral strategy and has generated a return of S20 million this year on the $100 million Thomasville has invested with him. Garvin uses a convertible arbitrage strategy and has lost $15 million this year on the $200 million Thomasville has invested with him, with most of the loss coming in the last quarter of the year. Thomasville pays each outside manager an incentive fee of 20% on profits. During the risk management committee meeting Nicholson evaluates the characteristics of the arrangement with Boston Advisors. Nicholson states that the asymmetric nature of Thomasville's contract with Boston Advisors creates adverse consequences for Thomasville's net profits and that the compensation contract resembles a put option owned by Boston Advisors.
Upon request, Fluellen provides a risk assessment for the firm's large cap growth portfolio using a monthly dollar VAR. To do so, Fluellen obtains the following statistics from the fund manager. The value of the fund is $80 million and has an annual expected return of 14.4%. The annual standard deviation of returns is
21.50%. Assuming a standard normal distribution, 5% of the potential portfolio values are 1.65 standard deviations below the expected return.
Thomasville periodically engages in options trading for hedging purposes or when they believe that options are mispriced. One of their positions is a long position in a call option for Moffett Corporation. The option is a European option with a 3-month maturity. The underlying stock price is $27 and the strike price of the option is $25. The option sells for S2.86. Thomasville has also sold a put on the stock of the McNeill Corporation. The option is an American option with a 2-month maturity. The underlying stock price is $52 and the strike price of the option is $55. The option sells for $3.82. Fluellen assesses the credit risk of these options to Thomasville and states that the current credit risk of the Moffett option is $2.86 and the current credit risk of the McNeill option is $3.82.
Thomasville also uses options quite heavily in their Special Strategies Portfolio. This portfolio seeks to exploit mispriced assets using the leverage provided by options contracts. Although this fund has achieved some spectacular returns, it has also produced some rather large losses on days of high market volatility.
Nicholson has calculated a 5% VAR for the fund at $13.9 million. In most years, the fund has produced losses exceeding $13.9 million in 13 of the 250 trading days in a year, on average. Nicholson is concerned about the accuracy of the estimated VAR because when the losses exceed $13.9 million, they are typically much greater than $13.9 million.
In addition to using options, Thomasville also uses swap contracts for hedging interest rate risk and currency exposures. Fluellen has been assigned the task of evaluating the credit risk of these contracts.
The characteristics of the swap contracts Thomasville uses are shown in Figure 1.
Fluellen later is asked to describe credit risk in general to the risk management committee. She states that cross-default provisions generally protect a creditor because they prevent a debtor from declaring immediate default on the obligation owed to the creditor when the debtor defaults on other obligations.
Fluellen also states that credit risk and credit VAR can be quickly calculated because bond rating firms provide extensive data on the defaults for investment grade and junk grade corporate debt at reasonable prices.
Which of the following best describes the accuracy of the VAR measure calculated for the Special Strategies Portfolio?
A. It is inaccurate and should be supplemented with comprehensive stress testing.
B. It is accurate but should be supplemented with scenario analysis.
C. It is accurate and provides a complete measure of the fund's risk.
Answer: B
Explanation:
Explanation/Reference:
Explanation:
The VAR measure calculated for the Special Strategies Portfolio is accurate. At a 5% VAR, losses exceeding the threshold of $13-9 million should occur about 5% of the time. With 250 trading days and a
5% VAR, losses exceeding the threshold should occur in 12.5 (5% x 250) days out of a year. This is very close to the 13 observed.
However, the fact that the losses usually exceed $13-9 million suggests that the fund has the potential to suffer large losses. Because of this, scenario analysis should be performed as a supplement to VAR so management can be aware of the potential for large losses and better protect the firm against such a scenario.
Note also that although the calculated VAR has been accurate, the presence of options and their non- normal return distributions indicates that the variance-covariance VAR should not be used. The variance- covariance or analytical VAR assumes a normal distribution of returns. The historical method or Monte Carlo method of calculating VAR should be used for options because these methods do nor assume a normal distribution of returns. (Study Session 14, LOS 40.f)
