CCP disclosures show that total Initial Margin held at CCPs is increasing, mainly driven by increasing IM held by clients. We see a steady increase in the number of client accounts at CCPs, which is likely a key driver of Client IM heading higher. Compression volumes from the SDRs have hit recent records, and triOptima […]

Initial margin is an important portolio measure Attributing it to constituent business units is not simple Diversification benefit between units is a key concept The choice of methodologies can align or mis-align incentives An example explains what you should know Initial Margin and Diversification Benefit IM is a portfolio risk measure and one that is […]

Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) for IM have now been in force for one year The ISDA Margin Survey 2017 provides a snapshot of IM delivered and received $47.2 billion and $46.6 billion respectively, between Phase One firms (March 31, 2017) I look at how the figures compare to an $800 billion estimate from 2012 What […]

Summary: Initial Margin requirements for OTC Derivatives are large and increasing at CCPs IM Optimization is a periodic or trade by trade analysis that seeks to reduce overall IM Clearing members can achieve significant cost and capital benefits Similar techniques can be extended to UMR and ISDA SIMM Client IM is growing much more rapidly than […]

aka “How Volatile is Initial Margin?” The month of November has seen a very significant market movement for most markets, and in particular for fixed income derivatives. Some of our clients this past month have seen some massive swings in margin requirements for their cleared swaps, and I was intrigued to go see if this […]

Following on from my article on Sizing the Margin Buffer for Cleared Swaps I wanted to look at how a margin buffer sized prior to Trump’s US Election win, would have held up on November 9, 2016 and whether such Event Risk should be handled differently. USD Swap Rates We covered the market moves in our […]

Daily Variation Margin flows between Clearing Houses and Clearing Members and between Clearing Members and their Clients are sizeable e.g. we know from LCH SwapClear’s CPMI-IOSCO Disclosures that the highest VM paid on a single day by all members to the CCP was $16 billion! As Clearing Houses make intra-day margin calls, Clearing members generally maintain […]

Back in August I wrote an article about how large, self-clearing firms can reduce the amount of capital required to support their cleared business by wisely choosing to backload margin-reducing bilateral trades. While I wrote that about large banks, there is an analogous case for trading firms that do not self-clear.  In fact, we’ve been […]

Continuing with the theme of Uncleared Margin, I wanted to look at how large the Initial Margin for Uncleared Swaps and Other Derivatives could become at the end point in 2019. ISDA Research Lets start with this interesting document from ISDA, Initial Margin for Non-Centrally Cleared Swaps. In which ISDA estimates that, with the $50 million counterparty […]

We’re all aware that in the US, the new Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) took effect on September 1st.  Except they kinda didn’t take effect.  There was this chestnut of No-Action relief issued by the CFTC on the day, which, if you just read the headline news reports, meant that the Rules were pushed back 1 […]