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Journal Article
Risk in the repo market
Report
Trading risk and volatility in interest rate swap spreads
This paper examines how risk in trading activity can affect the volatility of asset prices. We look for this relationship in the behavior of interest rate swap spreads and in the volume and interest rates of repurchase contracts. Specifically, we focus on convergence trading, in which speculators take positions on a bet that asset prices will converge to normal levels. We investigate how the risks in convergence trading can affect price volatility in a form of positive feedback that can amplify shocks in asset prices. In our analysis, we see empirical evidence of both stabilizing and ...
Journal Article
Trading risk, market liquidity, and convergence trading in the interest rate swap spread
While trading activity is generally thought to play a central role in the self-stabilizing behavior of markets, the risks in trading on occasion can affect market liquidity and heighten asset price volatility. This article examines empirical evidence on the limits of arbitrage in the interest rate swap market. The author finds both stabilizing and destabilizing forces attributable to leveraged trading activity. Although the swap spread tends to converge to its fundamental level, it does so more slowly or even diverges from its fundamental level when traders are under stress, as indicated by ...
Report
Responses to the financial crisis, treasury debt, and the impact on short-term money markets
Several programs have been introduced by U.S. fiscal and monetary authorities in response to the financial crisis. We examine the responses involving Treasury debt?the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF), the Supplemental Financing Program, increases in Treasury issuance, and open market operations?and their impacts on the overnight Treasury general collateral repo rate, a key money market rate. Our contribution is to consider each policy in light of the others, both to help guide policy responses to future crises and to emphasize policy interactions. Only the TSLF was designed to ...
Monograph
Instruments of the money market
Working Paper
Liquidity Regulation and Financial Intermediaries
We document several effects of the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) rule on dealers' financing and intermediation of securities. For identification, we exploit the fact that the US implementation is more stringent than that in foreign jurisdictions. In line with LCR incentives, US dealers reduce their reliance on repos as a way to finance inventories of high-quality assets and increase the maturity of lower-quality repos relative to foreign dealers; additionally, US dealers cut back on trades that downgrade their own collateral. Dealers are nevertheless still providing significant maturity ...
Journal Article
Special repo rates: an introduction
Transactions involving repurchase agreements (known as repos and reverses) are important tools the Federal Reserve uses in implementing monetary policy. By undertaking such transactions with primary dealers, the Fed can temporarily increase or decrease the quantity of reserves in the banking system. The focus of this article is the repo market, especially the role the market plays in the financing and hedging activities of primary dealers. The author explains the close relation between the price premium that newly auctioned, or on-the-run, Treasury securities command and the special repo ...
Report
How do stock repurchases affect bank holding company performance?
Using data from bank holding company regulatory reports, we examine the relationship between stock repurchases and financial performance for a large sample of bank holding companies over the years 1987 to 1998. The primary result is that higher levels of repurchases in one year are associated with higher profitability and a lower share of problem loans in the subsequent year. This finding is robust to several different ways of measuring share repurchase activity. Our results appear to be driven primarily by bank holding companies with publicly traded stock, especially those companies whose ...