Debt Investment Strategies

The diverse investment opportunities available in the debt market enable both individual and institutional investors to develop effective passive and active strategies for financial planning and portfolio management. Such strategies suggest a set of purchases, redemptions, and liquidations to meet investor objectives that consider such factors as market risk, expected investment returns, cash flows, liquidity, and investor convenience. Investment strategies can inoculate the portfolio against potential adverse markets events such as wide fluctuations in interest rates or can be executed in anticipation of an event affecting future market conditions such as an announcement by the Federal Reserve or the default of a municipality. This chapter presents different scenarios in which an investor would employ some appropriate strategies involving bonds or other debt-based securities.

Valuing and Analyzing Bonds with Embedded Options

This chapter introduces the analysis and valuation of bonds with embedded options. For callable bonds, it discusses their unique reinvestment risk and negative convexity. For both callable bonds and puttable bonds, the chapter introduces two additional measures to gauge their risk: yield-to-call and yield-to-put, respectively. The chapter reviews the application of the spot rate curve in bond valuation and introduces the Z-spread to measure bond-specific risk more accurately. To model interest rate risk, the chapter builds a binomial interest rate model and calibrates it with on-the-run Treasury issues. The option-adjusted-spread (OAS) is introduced to measure the bond-specific risk excluding the option effect. The difference between Z-spread and OAS represents the option effect. Common measures of convertible bond risk and value are discussed including the possibility of valuating a convertible bond using option-pricing models and its drawbacks.

Securitization Process

The securitization process has become an essential tool that provides liquidity to firms and borrowers while opening up the breadth and depth of the capital markets to previously underserved individuals and firms. Securitized products pool illiquid, idiosyncratic assets or contracts, turn those pools into claims (bonds) with a new capital structure with differing risk-return attributes, and sell those bonds to institutional investors. Securitization began in the housing market where single-family mortgages were pooled and sold to investors as mortgage-backed securities. The securitized market has increased in size and complexity to include many other asset classes such as commercial real estate loans in commercial mortgage-backed securities, student loans, credit card debt, auto leases, equipment leases, and aircraft leases in asset-backed securities. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the participants in and the general structure of securitizations.

Other Bond Products

Over time, the availability of investable bond products has expanded considerably to include bonds focused on social improvements (social impact bonds), life settlement securitization (death bonds), natural disaster risk transfer (catastrophe bonds), environmental improvements (green bonds), and collateralized bonds (covered bonds). Social impact bonds are geared toward positive social change to provide financing to programs that are otherwise ignored or underfunded. Death bonds are bonds backed by the cash flows from life insurance policies. Catastrophe bonds enable spreading the risk of natural disasters or human catastrophes to a broader investor base. Green bonds are issued to raise funds to revitalize brownfield sites or underdeveloped areas and geared toward energy efficiency and pollution control, sustainable agriculture, and clean transportation. Covered bonds are issued against a pool of assets but remain on the issuer’s balance sheet providing safety in the event of bankruptcy. This chapter briefly discusses each of these products.

Floating Rate Notes

This chapter provides an overview of floating rate notes (FRNs). Although FRNs originated in Europe, their first introduction in the United States came in 1974 when Citicorp sold $650 million worth of its 15-year notes. Since that time, FRNs have evolved into a variety of types. FRN types covered in the chapter include the plain, capped, floored, collared, reverse, super, deleveraged, perpetual, and flip-flop. An FRN can have a maturity of up to 30 years and include periodic interest rate adjustments throughout its life. An FRN uses a reference rate, such as London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR), Treasury bill (T-bill) rate, prime rate, or domestic certificate of deposit rate plus a spread to determine its coupon rate. The chapter provides a discussion of such risk factors as interest rate risk, credit risk, call/reinvestment risk, liquidity risk, and market risk. Additionally, it covers FRN valuation using spread for life, effective margin, total adjusted margin, discount margin, and option-adjusted spread methods.

Yield Curves, Swap Curves, and Term Structure of Interest Rates

This chapter discusses multiple definitions of the yield curve and provides a conceptual understanding on the construction of yield curves for several markets. It reviews several definitions of the yield curve and examines the basic principles of the arbitrage-free pricing as they apply to yield curve construction. The chapter also reviews cases in which the no-arbitrage assumption is dropped from the yield curve, and then moves to specifics of the arbitrage-free curve construction for bond and swap markets. The concepts of equilibrium and market curves are introduced. The details of construction of both types of the curve are illustrated with examples from the U.S. Treasury market and the U.S. interest rate swap market. The chapter concludes by examining the major changes to the swap curve construction process caused by the financial crisis of 2007–2008 that made a profound impact on the interest rate swap markets.

Derivatives Markets

Interest rate derivatives markets have enjoyed substantial growth since the late 1990s. This chapter discusses the development of these markets since 2000 and introduces the most popular interest rate derivative instruments. Although forward rate agreements and interest rate swaps are important examples of over-the-counter (OTC) products, futures on interest rates and bonds are innovations of organized exchanges. Both OTC interest rate options and exchange-traded options on interest rate futures are discussed to illustrate an overlapping area of both types of derivatives markets. Participants in debt markets are also exposed to both interest rate and credit risk. To mitigate the latter risk, the OTC fixed income derivatives markets provide credit default swaps (CDSs). As credit derivatives are also a subset of fixed income derivatives, CDSs are discussed further.

Corporate Bond Markets

This chapter covers the fundamentals of corporate bond markets. It begins by highlighting the size and importance of these markets, followed by a discussion of the major types of corporate bonds and the process of issuing bonds. Next, the chapter provides a discussion of important relationships between a bond’s price and market interest rates, including the key observation that bond prices move opposite market interest rates. The next topic focuses on duration and convexity, which are techniques to estimate the dollar and percent changes in bond prices for a given change in market interest rates, followed by a discussion of bond immunization, which is a technique used to protect the value of bond portfolios from adverse changes in market interest rates. The final topics covered concern yield curves, credit ratings, and the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010 on corporate bond markets.

Debt Trends and Future Outlook

The United States had a combined $47 trillion of public and private sector debt outstanding in the third quarter of 2016. This staggering figure is larger than many countries’ gross domestic products (GDPs) combined. Borrowers include the U.S. government, businesses, and households. The debt is held by both domestic and foreign investors. The amount of debt affects everything from a country’s ability to grow to an individual’s ability to get married or buy a home when saddled with crushing student loans. In early 2018, the most notable trends in debt markets include increased borrowing across all sectors and rising interest rates that will affect the ability of some borrowers to repay their debts. These trends are not just domestic, but global, as the U.S. Federal Reserve begins to roll back a decade-long period of quantitative easing and other central banks are likely to soon follow. This chapter considers trends in debt markets and their implications for the future.

Credit Analysis and Ratings

Credit analysis is more than just a quantitative exercise because qualitative factors can influence creditor decisions to lend funds. This chapter discusses the importance of balancing the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative characteristics with an analysis of qualitative characteristics. The extension of credit from a lender to a business is a decision that should follow the careful analysis of factors recognized as industry structuring tools. The “five Cs of credit” provide a framework to begin a qualitative assessment of a company, for without context, financial analysis is almost meaningless. A subsequent discussion of business, industry, and economic analysis rounds out the qualitative considerations. The chapter also offers a discussion of the critical role of the credit rating agencies as gatekeepers. Finally, a review of financial statements, metrics, ratio analysis, and firm capital structure provides a broad view of the firm when conducting a financial analysis. The chapter presents a case study to illustrate key principles.