FI question

Can someone explain why things are looked and are preferred, in some instances, to be looked at as a spread of something, in fixed income? For example, T-bill/OIS spread, SOFR swap spread, OAS? Why can’t thinks be looked at for their individual values? What am I missing in my understanding?

6 Comments
 

do feel like you are overthinking this. you get a quick RV measure and a timeseries - what's there to complain about? specific spreads obviously have their own fundamental/macro interpretation which is the harder part

 

You certainly know a lot of stuff. I was using the Tbill/OIS anecdotally. I was looking for the reasoning behind why they’re looked at a spread. You mentioned macro/fundamental for each of those.. any books that delve I to that stuff?

Additionally, you mentioned time series, what is that most used for aside from just linearly looking at things? Just trying to understand all this..

 
Most Helpful

Fixed Income Relative Value Analysis and SOFR Futures and Options both by Christian Schaller and Doug Huggins comes to mind first. also a lot of it will be picked up by asking the senior guys ie pointing to some chart/model on their screen. you can look at a spread linearly/50-50 weighted but you can also look at things beta weighted ie regressing the level changes of 10s on level changes of 2s - the resulting beta is ur hedge ratio. can also use the ratio of PC1 loadings (PCA on the covar matrix) to derive ur "beta" (not really beta) weight -> which becomes ur hedge ratio. this logic is extrapolated to flies. Schaller and Huggins gives a good treatment. Also Tuckman (ed 4th) chapter 6 has good examples that may interest you

 

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