Serving the Quantitative Finance Community

 
User avatar
nicholaihel
Topic Author
Posts: 0
Joined: June 11th, 2006, 5:37 pm

Negative Carry Cost of A Flattener XCCY Trade

March 18th, 2011, 1:32 pm

Hi,I know this or variations of this question has been asked before, but I can't calculate the negative carry in the below trading recommendation even after reading them:"We stay neutral local rates in the model portfolio, but with a flattening bias to the curve: Pay 1y xccy, receive 5y xccy at 119bp; target 50bp; stop loss 150bp; negative carry 7bp per month (3m forward spread is 98bp)."Based on this I look at the 5y XCCY rates which is at 8,34% and 1Y at 7,15%. The difference is 1,19%. To be honest I don't know how to calculate the duration of a xccy so I look at the 5Y bond in the market and it has a modified duration of 3,2; and 1Y bond has MD of 0,8. Therefore as an example, I think that in order to be duration neutral I must pay 4,000,000 nominal amount of 1Y XCCY and receive 1,000,000 nominal amount of 5Y XCCY. Where do we go from here to calculate the negative carry of 7 bps? How does the forward spread get into this picture? O/N repo rate is 6,25%.I'd really appreciate if you could recommend some books with practical applications on these topics as well? I check tuckman, fabozzi but can't seem to relate these trading recommendations with what I read there...Many thanks in advance...
 
User avatar
boztepe13
Posts: 0
Joined: September 10th, 2010, 6:51 am

Negative Carry Cost of A Flattener XCCY Trade

May 22nd, 2011, 8:59 am

i appreciate too if smo could help. thnx many many in advance.
 
User avatar
Martinghoul
Posts: 188
Joined: July 18th, 2006, 5:49 am

Negative Carry Cost of A Flattener XCCY Trade

May 23rd, 2011, 11:54 am

Their calculation is not really that of "carry" per se. They actually mean to say that carry = rolldown and rolldown is negative 21bps (98bps - 119bps) for 3mo, i.e. 7bps/mo.
Last edited by Martinghoul on May 22nd, 2011, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.