问题如下:
During 2004 and 2005, a popular strategy in credit markets for hedge funds, banks, and brokerages was to sell protection on the equity tranche and buy protection on the mezzanine tranche of the investment-grade CDS index. Which of the following statements regarding this trade is least accurate?
选项:
A.The trade was designed to be default-risk neutral at initiation with equal credit spread sensitivities on the two legs.
B.This strategy is profitable when the CDS index spread between equity and mezzanine narrows.
C.The motivation of the trade was to have a positively convex payoff profile with the two positions benefiting from credit spread volatility.
D.The trade was long credit spread risk on the equity tranche and short credit spread risk on the mezzanine tranche.
解释:
B is correct.
考点:credit market in early 2005
解析:这个交易是long credit spread risk on the equity tranche,同时short credit spread risk on the mezzanine tranche。最开始是default-neutral的,通过凸性在spread波动中赚差价。equity和mezzanine的spread变小策略会亏钱。
这里B应该也是正确的,如果相关性增加,则意味劣后级CDS报价,相比夹层CDS报价,增长地少(或者叫减少地多),也就意味着两者的Spread 变窄。