Improving term structure measurements by incorporating steps in a multiple yield curve framework

Abstract: By issuing interest rate derivative contracts, market makers such as large banks are exposed to undesired risk. There are several methods for banks to hedge themselves against this type of risk; one such method is the stochastic programming model developed by Blomvall and Hagenbjörk (2022). The effectiveness of their model relies on accurate pricing of interest rate derivatives and risk factor analysis, both of which are derived from a term structure. Blomvall and Ndengo (2013) present a discretized multiple yield curve framework for term structure measurement that allows for price deviations. The model uses regularization to deal with noise inherent in market price observations, where the regularization counteracts oscillations in the term structure and retains the smoothness of the curve by penalizing the first and second-order derivatives. Consequently, the resulting model creates a trade-off between a smooth curve and market price deviations. Changes in policy rates adjusted by a country’s central bank significantly impact the financial market and its actors. In this thesis, the model developed by Blomvall and Ndengo (2013) was further extended to include these steps in conjunction with monetary policy meetings. Two models were developed to realize the steps in the risk-free curve. The first model introduced an additional deviation term to allow for a shift in the curve. In the second model, the weights in the regularization were adjusted to allow for rapid changes on days surrounding the closest monetary policy meeting. A statistical test was conducted to determine the performance of the two models. The test showed that the model with adjusted regularization outperformed the model with an additional deviation term as well as a benchmark model without steps. However, both step models managed to reduce in-sample pricing errors, while the model with an additional deviation term performed worse than the benchmark model for out-of-sample data, given the current parameter setting. Other parameter combinations would potentially result in different outcomes, but it remains conjectural.