Well, if you think about the value of the govt backstop option and the nature of the LIBOR basket, 30y, rather than 10y, makes a lot of sense.
Anybody else short US 30 Bond
- Thread starter richard_m
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Martinghoul's mentioning of PRDC rings a bell, I remember a ML or MS article on it when it first went negative last Fall. I probably still have the article at work, if you want me to get it, scan it, and send...let me know.
I'll explain to you another reason, the one that was explained to me, and stuck the most. It went something like this. After Lehman, a ton duration hedges went up in smoke. All of a sudden you have this huge pool of institutional investors who have to add a ton of duration to get their portfolios realigned...30+year rec fixed.
At the time you had two options
a) buy 30 year bond
b) put on a 30 year rec fixed swap
Option A involved spending a @#$% ton of money
Option B involved no outlay at all
I do seem to remember last fall spending cash was almost a cardinal sin
This outweighed the fact that you were receiving at relatively low rates compared to govt debt.Quote from nelsanity:
Martinghoul's mentioning of PRDC rings a bell, I remember a ML or MS article on it when it first went negative last Fall. I probably still have the article at work, if you want me to get it, scan it, and send...let me know.
I'll explain to you another reason, the one that was explained to me, and stuck the most. It went something like this. After Lehman, a ton duration hedges went up in smoke. All of a sudden you have this huge pool of institutional investors who have to add a ton of duration to get their portfolios realigned...30+year rec fixed.
At the time you had two options
a) buy 30 year bond
b) put on a 30 year rec fixed swap
Option A involved spending a @#$% ton of money
Option B involved no outlay at all
I do seem to remember last fall spending cash was almost a cardinal sin
i am interested in the article - if you can send it to me that would be great.
LEH reason is interesting but somehow i am hard to press to believe it.
1. why would LEH had the unbalanced book in the first place?, i.e. why after LEH default everybody needs to receive? remember all OTC transactions are under ISDA netting agreement and credit support annex, i.e. all transactions go off at MtM.
2. not sure cash was king in Oct-Nov08 when the biggest tightenning in swap spreads happenned. in fact treasuries were king which would support widenning of spreads.
one thing for sure. swap rates led tsy yields by about 4 weeks which kind of support something of the sort you say. but i still have feeling i am missing something and more and more i thing about it more i think it is important.
Ok gimme a week or so.
I'll try to answer your questions in order
1.Market makers do have a balanced book, or close to one at the end of each day. Institutions like the one I work for love using rec fixed swaps to manage duration. What does ISDA netting have to do with your question or my point? LEH went bankrupt, their OTC positions disappeared man..
2. Cash was king, and still is...why you think 1m bills drawing 0.000%... The fact it was king meant it was easier to rec fixed in a swap to achieve duration target because no initial outlay was required., thats why spreads tightened and went negative.
While there was a bit of that (similar phenomenon was occurring in the GBP mkt, where Leh was quite big), this was a relatively short-lived effect.
It doesn't take much for a real-money account to set up repo lines with their swap cpties, which would allow them to do their duration via cash bonds, as opposed to swaps. It makes sense to do that if asset swap levels are ridiculous.
However, I still think the fundamental shift in the perception of sovereign risk vs LIBOR basket risk is the main driver of the shift in swapspreads. My guess is that you can probably see it best in the sovereign CDS mkt (European sovs probably most interesting).
Well, in a cash-constrained world buying bonds without repo lines is very hard, while swaps are easy. If you have repo lines, buying bonds is not hard at all, even under relatively cash-constrained conditions.
I don't understand this...
The duration of my bond position doesn't depend on the term of my repos. Point is that, if I have repo lines, and I buy a 30y bond, I can lend it out and thus get my duration for 0 (or close to 0, depending on the haircut) cash, just like with the swaps.