Are There Arbitrage Opportunities in Credit Derivatives Markets? A New Test and an Application to the Case of CDS and ASPs

This paper analyzes possible arbitrage opportunities in credit derivatives markets using selffinancing strategies combining Credit Default Swaps and Asset Swaps Packages. We present a new statistical arbitrage test based on the subsampling methodology which has lower Type I error than existing alternatives. Using four different databases covering the period from 2005 to 2009, long-run (cointegration) and statistical arbitrage analysis are performed. Before the subprime crisis, we find long-run arbitrage opportunities in 26% of the cases and statistical arbitrage opportunities in 24% of the cases. During the crisis, arbitrage opportunities decrease to 8% and 19%, respectively. Arbitrage opportunities are more frequent in the case of relatively low rated bonds and bonds with a high coupon rate

Debt refinancing and credit risk

Many firms choose to refinance their debt. We investigate the long run effects of this extended practice on credit ratings and credit spreads. We find that debt refinancing generates systematic rating downgrades unless a minimum firm value growth is observed. Deviations from this growth path imply asymmetric results: A lower value growth generates downgrades and a higher value growth upgrades as expected. However, downgrades will tend to be higher in absolute terms. On the other hand, credit spreads will be independent of the risk free interest rate in the short run, but positively correlated with this rate in the long run

Credit spreads: theory and evidence about the information content of stocks, bonds and cdss

This paper presents a procedure for computing homogeneous measures of credit risk from stocks, bonds and CDSs. The measures are based on bond spreads (BS), CDS spreads (CDS) and implied stock market credit spreads (ICS). We compute these measures for a sample of North American and European firms and find that in most cases, the stock market leads the credit risk discovery process with respect to bond and CDS markets

Credit spreads: An empirical analysis on the informational content of stocks, bonds, and CDS..

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between stock market implied credit spreads, CDS spreads, and bond spreads. A general VECM representation is proposed for changes in the three credit spread measures which accounts for zero, one, or two independent cointegration equations, depending on the evidence provided by any particular company. Empirical analysis on price discovery, based on a proprietary sample of North American and European firms, and tailored to the specific VECM at hand, indicates that stocks lead CDS and bonds more frequently than the other way round. It likewise confirms the leading role of CDS with respect to bonds.Credit spreads; Price discovery;

Stock Market Regulations and Internacional Financial Integration: the case of Spain.

International financial integration effects on the Spanish stock market are studied, both for the conditional mean and conditional variance. New institutional regulations in Spain are taken into account and their efficiency consequences are addressed. Results suggest an increasing international integration but nontrivial opportunities for financial diversification may still be relevant.Financial integration; Market reforms; Stochastic volatility;

Pricing tranched credit products with generalized multifactor models

The market for tranched credit products (CDOs, Itraxx tranches) is one of the fastest growing segments in the credit derivatives industry. However, some assumptions underlying the standard Gaussian onefactor pricing model (homogeneity, single factor, Normality), which is the pricing standard widely used in the industry, are probably too restrictive. In this paper we generalize the standard model by means of a two by two model (two factors and two asset classes). We assume two driving factors (business cycle and industry) with independent tStudent distributions, respectively, and we allow the model to distinguish among portfolio assets classes. In order to illustrate the estimation of the parameters of the model, an empirical application with Moody's data is also included

On the economic link between asset prices and real activity.

This paper presents a model linking two financial markets (stocks and bonds) with real business cycle, in the framework of the Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model with Generalized Isoelastic Preferences. Besides interest rate term spread, the model includes a new variable to forecast economic activity: stock market term spread. This is the slope of expected stock market returns. The empirical evidence documented in this paper suggests systematic relationships between business cycle’s state and the shapes of two yield curves (interest rates and expected stock returns). Results are robust to changes in measures of economic growth, stock prices, interest rates and expectations generating mechanisms.Stock market; Interest rates; Economic growth; Term structure;

Systemic risk measures: the simpler the better.

We compute six different sets of systemic risk measures for a sample of the 20 biggest European and 13 biggest US banks from January 2004 to November 2009. The six measures are based on i) Principal components of the bank’s Credit Default Swaps (CDSs), ii) Interbank interest rate spreads, iii) Structural credit risk models, iv) Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) indexes and their tranches, v) Multivariate densities computed from CDS spreads and vi) Co-Risk measures. We then rank the measures using three different criteria: i) Causality tests, ii) Price discovery tests and iii) their correlation with an index of systemic events. For the European and US markets, the best indicators are the first Principal Component of the single-name CDSs and the LIBOR-OIS or LIBOR-TBILL spreads, respectively, whereas the least reliable indicators are the Co-Risk measures and the systemic spreads extracted from the CDO indexes and their tranches.Systemic risk; CDS; Libor spreads; CoVaR;

Modeling electricity prices: international evidence

This paper analyses the evolution of electricity prices in deregulated markets. We present a general model that simultaneously takes into account the possibility of several factors: seasonality, mean reversion, GARCH behaviour and time-dependent jumps. The model is applied to equilibrium spot prices of electricity markets from Argentina, Australia (Victoria), New Zealand (Hayward), NordPool (Scandinavia), Spain and U.S. (PJM) using daily data. Six different nested models were estimated to compare the relative importance of each factor and their interactions. We obtained that electricity prices are mean-reverting with strong volatility (GARCH) and jumps of time-dependent intensity even after adjusting for seasonality. We also provide a detailed unit root analysis of electricity prices against mean reversion, in the presence of jumps and GARCH errors, and propose a new powerful procedure based on bootstrap techniques