Finance Seminar（2016-10）

Topic:Funding Value Adjustments

Speaker:Yang Song, Stanford University

Time:Wednesday, 4 May, 10:00-11:30

Place:Room 217, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

We demonstrate that large funding value adjustments (FVAs) being made by derivatives dealers to the disclosed valuations of their swap books are not consistent with any coherent notion of fair market value. Essentially the same funding cost adjustment is a reduction in the dealer's equity value. This reduction in equity value is exactly offset by the sum of an upward adjustment to a dealer's debt valuation (as a wealth transfer from shareholders) and a change in the present value of the dealer's financial distress costs. While others have already suggested that FVA accounting suffers from coherence problems, this paper is the first to identify and characterize these problems in the context of a full structural model of a dealer's balance sheet. In addition to giving an appropriate theoretical foundation for funding value adjustments, our model shows how dealers' bid and ask quotes should be adjusted so as to compensate shareholders for the impact of both funding costs and the dealer's own default risk. We also establish a pecking order for preferred swap financing strategies, characterize the valuation effects of initial margin financing (known as \MVA"), and provide a new interpretation of the standard debit value adjustment (DVA).

Introduction:

Yang Song is a phd candidate in Finance at Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He completed a B.S. in Mathematics from Fudan University and a M.S. in Financial Mathematics from Stanford University. His research interests are financial intermediation, macro-finance, over-the-counter (OTC) markets, active asset management, and monetary policy. His paper has been covered by media including Bloomberg and Risk Magazine.

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