Fixed Income, Asset Management and Options

Objectives

This course covers the main models and techniques used to analyze fixed income instruments and their derivatives. The course aims to provide students with the concepts and tools that money managers and risk managers use every day to decide on how to allocate investments or to manage the interest rate risk exposure of mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance companies, investment banks, and other large nonfinancial firms.
Learning objectives:
A. Knowledge and Understanding
1. Understand the functioning of fixed income markets
2. Know how to manage a bond portfolio
B. Subject-Specific Skills
1. Estimate the term structure of interest rates from a set of bond prices
2. Implement an immunization strategy
3. Use derivatives to manage interest rate risk
C. General Skills
1. Improve analytical thinking
2. Use IT tools available to managers
3. Financial theories and markets

General characterization

Code

14510

Credits

3

Responsible teacher

João Pedro Pereira

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

Portuguese | English

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

A set of handouts will be distributed in class. They are based on the following books:
1. Veronesi. Fixed income securities: valuation, risk, and risk management. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. The site http://pietroveronesi.org/teaching/FIS/ has solutions to exercises, some chapters of the book, and other resources.
2. Hull. Options, futures, and other derivatives. Pearson, 8th ed, 2012. (or newer edition)
3. Tuckman and Serrat. Fixed Income Securities. John Wiley and Sons, 2011.

Teaching method

T. Teaching Methods. The course will follow a standard lecture mode, where we will:
1. Discuss the theory of each topic.
2. Solve applied problems.
L. Learning Methods. The recommend learning methods are:
1. Reviewing the content of the lectures and related bibliography.
2. Solving homework problems

Evaluation method

The assessment of this curricular unit is done together with the block of curricular units of the same area of knowledge. This assessment has 3 moments, which together define the final grade of the curricular unit:
• Individual exam with a weighting of 50% of the total mark
• Group work with a weighting of 35% of the total grade value
• Individual reflection-action exercise carried out at the end of the curricular unit, with a weighting of 15% of the total grade value. The set of individual action-reflection exercises is a journaling activity, which will constitute, at the end, a learning portfolio capable of synthesising the contributions of the Executive Master for that student.

Subject matter

1. Basics of fixed income
a. Markets &securities
b. Price quotes
c. Discount factors & interest rates
d. Fixed-coupon bonds
e. Floating-rate bonds
2. Yield curve fitting
a. Bootstrap
b. Nelson & Siegel model
c. Svensson model
3. Bond portfolio management
a. Duration
b. Immunization
c. Asset-Liability management
d. Convexity
4. Interest rate
a. Forward Rate Agreements
i. Hedging with FRA
ii. Pricing FRA
b. Interest rate swaps
i. Hedging with IRS
ii. Pricing IRS
iii. The swap curve
iv. Asset-Liability management with IRS
c. Forward contracts
i. Hedging with Forward contracts
ii. Pricing Forward contracts
d. Interest rate futures
i. Eurodollar futures
1. Hedging with Eurodollar futures
2. Extending the LIBOR zero curve
ii. Treasury bond futures
1. Cheapest to deliver
2. Hedging T-bond futures
e. Interest rate options
i. Bond options
ii. Caps & floors
5. Term structure dynamics: Vasicek model
a. Bond prices
b. Estimating the parameters
c. Prices of options on zero-coupon bonds

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: