SOFR hedge instead of cap/swap

Rather than paying for a cap on floating rate debt tied to SOFR, I'd like to buy my own hedge. Conceptually I understand how swaps perform this function, but I'm not sure how I would set that up by opening the underlying position directly. My first thought is CME options of SOFR futures. Curious if anyone has done this and has advice.

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Yes, I got that. Rather than paying a premium or points to a bank for a cap/swap/hedge, I'm interested in the best way to arrange that independent of the bank. If purchased through a bank, the bank buys some underlying debt/options/product/swap to make sure they're not exposed if rates go higher. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do that directly. I had a conversation with PNC that seems to offer a lot of swaps to regional banks, but they wouldn't tell me the specific mechanics of how they set up the trade. 

 
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No lender would accept a hedge placed by a borrower because IRC payments are guaranteed by large institutions and you wouldn't be able to do that (if I wanted to rely on your credit, I would take an interest guaranty and let you go naked on the cap).

If this is just an intellectual exercise, then there are plenty of books on how the hedges ladders work.

 
mrcheese321

No lender would accept a hedge placed by a borrower because IRC payments are guaranteed by large institutions and you wouldn't be able to do that (if I wanted to rely on your credit, I would take an interest guaranty and let you go naked on the cap).

If this is just an intellectual exercise, then there are plenty of books on how the hedges ladders work.

I'm not asking the lender to accept my hedge/cap/swap. I want to set it up independent of the lender, but function the same way as if I'd purchased this through the lender (or their swap partner) directly. I would still be exposed to rising SOFR towards the lender, but I wouldn't be concerned because whatever futures/options I had purchased would give me the same security as if I had the cap/swap through the lender. It seems like this would save a bit as any lender would charge a premium on whatever they're paying for the underlying. Another benefit of doing it separate from the bank is that I wouldn't have to worry about loan covenants or terms if for some reason I wanted to close the hedge (like if SOFR dropped precipitously and I was not longer concerned about it rising).

 

An IRC is basically a set of calls with monthly maturity dates (1 month call + 2 month call + 3 month call, etc.). In theory, all you would need to do is buy a bunch of calls where the payments would match the liabilities. 
 

in practice, that is much more difficult to do/figure out, which is why everyone uses Chatham.

 
mrcheese321

An IRC is basically a set of calls with monthly maturity dates (1 month call + 2 month call + 3 month call, etc.). In theory, all you would need to do is buy a bunch of calls where the payments would match the liabilities. 
 

in practice, that is much more difficult to do/figure out, which is why everyone uses Chatham.

Thanks for suggesting Chatham. I'm something of a newbie and wasn't concerned about hedging construction debt when it was negligible.

 

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