Thursday, December 16, 2010

Interest-Only(IO) and Principal-Only (PO) strips

Interest-Only(IO) and Principal-Only (PO) strips
interest ratefavorable prepaymentdownside riskconvexity
prepayment
IO price (or return)slowContraction risk
PO price (or return)fastExtention risknegative at low current rate

(Question)
Which of the following statements about interest-only (IO) and principal-only (PO) strips is least accurate?

A. The IO price is positively related to interest rates, and at low current rates, POs exhibit some negative convexity.
B. IO cash flows start out large and diminish over time. As a result, IO investors are most concerned with extention risk.
C. In general, the volatility of the combined IO and PO strips equals the price volatility of the source passthrough.


Answer: B

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