Simplified Accounting for Convertible Bonds

Posted on September 8, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

Convertible bonds are complex financial instruments. However, the accounting treatment for convertible bonds has been simplified. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) released new guidance last month on accounting for convertible instruments and contracts in an entity’s own equity… Convertible instruments are debt or equity instruments (or features) that either …

How to Calculate Stock Beta in Excel-Replicating Yahoo Stock Beta

Posted on September 8, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

In a previous post, we presented a method for calculating a stock beta and implemented it in Python. In this follow-up post, we are going to implement the calculation in Excel. We continue to use Facebook as an example. What is beta? Recall that, In finance, the beta (market beta …

Valuation of Executive Stock Options Using a Closed-Form Formula

Posted on September 3, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

Executive stock options usually have complex payoffs. To price them, we often use the binomial tree method or Monte Carlo simulations. … a lattice model can be designed to accommodate dynamic assumptions of expected volatility and dividends over the option’s contractual term, and estimates of expected option exercise patterns during …

Valuation of Callable Putable Bonds-Derivative Pricing in Python

Posted on August 29, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

In a previous post, we presented a method for pricing a fixed-rate bond. In this post, we are going to discuss valuation of a callable bond. A callable bond (also called redeemable bond) is a type of bond (debt security) that allows the issuer of the bond to retain the …

Short Volatility Funds Lost Money During The Pandemic

Posted on August 27, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

With a sudden increase in volatility during the pandemic, many volatility funds lost money. Many funds were struck because they adopted a strategy known as shorting volatility — betting that it will fall or remain low. Such funds sell derivative protection such as put options, which give the buyer the …

Banks Hold Many Illiquid Assets

Posted on August 25, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

The trend in the increased holding of risky assets continues. Because of Covid-19, the big banks now hold more illiquid, opaque assets than before. Lenders including Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc., BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA reported a surge of more than 20% in their most opaque assets during …

Convertible Bond Issuance Has Increased

Posted on August 22, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

Convertible bond issuance has increased during the Covid 19 pandemic. From a funding perspective, convertible bonds have many attractive features for corporates, which have become more important during the pandemic. …In volatile markets, the value of the embedded option in a convertible bond increases. The asset class also becomes more …

How to Forecast Implied Volatility

Posted on August 20, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

How do you determine the volatility of an unlisted entity, and more generally, how do you forecast volatility? These are non-trivial questions. There is an interesting discussion on Stackexchange: Here is a question I had for a long time but I never asked. Let’s take an easy example, AirBnb will …

Valuation of Warrants-Derivative Pricing in Python

Posted on August 18, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

A warrant is a financial derivative instrument that is similar to a regular stock option except that when it is exercised, the company will issue more stocks and sell them to the warrant holder. Warrants and options are similar in that the two contractual financial instruments allow the holder special …

Impact of a Low Correlation Trading Strategy

Posted on August 17, 2020 By Harbourfront Technologies

When constructing a portfolio, adding a low correlation, low Sharpe ratio strategy can have the same impact as adding a high Sharp ratio strategy. The low correlation strategy is a great diversifier. The core argument presented in this paper –that SR is a misleading index of whom a fund should …