Interest Rate Risk Estimation: A New Duration-Based Approach
Posted: 14 Feb 2012 Last revised: 19 Feb 2016
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Interest Rate Risk Estimation: A New Duration-Based Approach
Date Written: February 14, 2012
Abstract
Duration is widely used by fixed income managers to proxy the interest rate risk of their assets and liabilities. However, it is well known that the convexity of the price-yield relationship introduces approximation errors that grow with changes in yield. In this paper we suggest a new approach, ‘discrete duration’, which significantly improves upon the accuracy of traditional duration methods and achieves a level of accuracy close to the more complex ‘duration plus convexity’ measure. In particular, discrete duration performs particularly well for long dated and low coupon rate bonds where the estimation error is impressively close to zero.
Keywords: Duration, Interest Rate Risk, Hedging, Fixed Income
JEL Classification: G10, G12
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