Abstract
The pricing of delivery options, particularly timing options, in Treasury bond futures is prohibitively expensive. Recursive use of the lattice model is unavoidable for valuing such options, as Boyle (1989) demonstrates. As a result, the main purpose of this study is to derive upper bounds and lower bounds for Treasury bond futures prices.
This study employs a maximum likelihood estimation technique presented by Chen and Scott (1993) to estimate the parameters for two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross models of the term structure. Following the estimation, the factor values are solved for by matching the short rate with the cheapest-to-deliver bond price. Then, upper bounds and lower bounds for Treasury bond futures prices can be calculated.
This study first shows that the popular preference-free, closed-form cost of carry model is an upper bound for the Treasury bond futures price. Then, the next step is to derive analytical lower bounds for the futures price under one- and two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross models of the term structure. The bound under the two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model is then tested empirically using weekly futures prices from January 1987 to December 2000.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
These bounds are not to be violated, or arbitrage profits should take place. As it will become clear (in Sect. 71.4), in the case of the upper bound that is model-free, a simple trading strategy can be formed to arbitrage against the violation (under perfect markets). In the case of the semi-model-dependent lower bound, arbitrage profits exist only if the assumed model is correct.
- 4.
T bond market is an over the counter market that has no official closing time, even though market practice adopts 3:00 p.m. Eastern time as a symbolic closing time. The futures market allows the short up to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time to make the delivery announcement, and hence theoretically there is a 5-h window for the wild card.
- 5.
Also see Hull (2009).
- 6.
For example, the closed-form solution under the one-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model can be found in Carr (1988).
- 7.
The name “accrued interest” comes in because in the delivery month, the bond price increases due to accrued interests. Here, Q is a traded price that included accrued interests.
- 8.
If there is a coupon in between t and T, we simply subtract the coupon value from the expected value.
- 9.
Note that in the second line of Eq. 71.17 where q i is divided through is due to the fact that there exists a bond i such that max{Φ(u)q i − δ(t, u + h)Q i (u + h)} > 0 in all states.
- 10.
- 11.
T bond futures prices are affected by all bonds underlying the yield curve, and yet doubtlessly the cheapest-to-deliver bond has the most influence.
- 12.
- 13.
All 10 cases are in the second subperiod: 1992–2000.
- 14.
Chen and Scott (1993) argue that the three-factor model does not necessarily dominate the two-factor model; in that, the three-factor model, although fits better the term structure, generates extra volatility. See Chen and Scott for details.
- 15.
The result of the alternative fitting is available upon request.
- 16.
Hull (2009) has an excellent demonstration of such a computation.
- 17.
That is, we do the business day count between trade day and the last day of the delivery month and assume 252 trading days for a given year.
- 18.
Lee et al. (2000) provide excellent introductions about how to conduct multiple regressions.
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Appendix
Appendix
From Theorem 1, we have:
where δ is strictly less than 1. Due to the risk-neutral pricing result we have, the LHS must equal X(t), and hence:
Note that the forward measure is maturity dependent. Clearly, the Radon-Nikodym derivative (RND) is
Since the measure is T-dependent, so should be the RND (usually, RND is just η(t)). Let the interest rate process be
Applying Ito’s lemma,
Letting:
and moving the first two terms to the left:
This implies the Girsanov transformation of the following:
The interest rate process under the forward measure henceforth becomes:
Note that the forward measure is quite general. It does not depend on any specific assumption on the interest rate process.
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Chen, RR., Yeh, SK. (2015). Analytical Bounds for Treasury Bond Futures Prices. In: Lee, CF., Lee, J. (eds) Handbook of Financial Econometrics and Statistics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7750-1_71
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