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FXFA ‐ FX COVERED ARBITRAGE USER GUIDE
Version 1.0, March 2009
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
Overview
FXFA allows users to identify passive arbitrage opportunities by analyzing the pricing
relationships between currency spot, forward and interest rates.
1. Run FXFA<go>, the main
FXFA screen will be launched.
2. Enter in a currency pair in
the Currency field to analyze.
For NDF or onshore markets, a
drop‐down will appear. Select
the appropriate market type:
• R = Regular
• N = NDF
• O= Onshore
Figure 1 – Main FXFA Page
3. Click on Imply drop‐down to select to imply deposit, forward or spot rates. For example, in
figure 1, the user is selecting to imply the EUR deposit. This means that the EUR deposit rate
will be derived from the foreign currency rate, in this example the USD, and the appropriate
spot and forward exchange rates for these currency pairs.
4. The Trade Direction field allows you to determine the side of the trade to imply. For
deposits these are borrowing or lending rates or both. For FX Forwards and Spot these are
buying or selling rates or both. Select your Trade Direction side from the drop‐down.
5. The “as of” date input allows you to switch from live prices to historical data.
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
6. The “Custom Rates” check
box turns highlighting on and
off.
7. The “Auto Refresh” check
box toggles the auto refresh
feature on and off. If this option
is selected the rates will refresh
automatically.
Figure 2 – Custom Rates
Toolbar Functionality
1. Contributions view allows
you to see the raw underlying
data that feeds the main screen.
Upon clicking on the
Contributions button, the
screen shown to the right will
display.
The dates on the main FXFA
screen are forward settlement
dates and they do not always
line up directly with the
indicative deposit rates
contributed on our system.
Figure 3 – Contributions View
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
With the contributions view,
you get a better idea of exactly
what is contributed, the time of
the last update, and a
perspective on what
information on the main screen
has been interpolated.
2. The Chart/Table button
toggles the screen between the
graphical chart view and the
table view of the analysis.
Figure 4 – Chart
3. The Customize Dates pop up lets you customize the dates that will be used for a specific
currency pair.
Select tenors to be included in
the analysis.
Click on the calendar icon next
to the date field to select broken
dates. Broken dates can also be
manually typed or drag and
dropped from excel. To drag
and drop from excel, highlight
the date fields on the Excel
spreadsheet and drag and drop
them into the date field.
Click on Add to add dates to
the Tenors and Broken Dates
list.
Figure 5 – Customized Dates
Click Update to save.
To go back to the original list of tenors, click on Restore Defaults button.
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
4. Customize Curves:
You have the option to customize the curves that will be used in the analysis. The defaults
curves sources can be defined in XDF for currency spot and forward rates and SWDF for
interest rates. You can select a default swap curve that will be used for currency rates, day
count conventions, whether the forward curve will be displayed in points or outrights
convention, and if forward rates are to be calculated from contributed rates for the currency
pair or cross calculated from contributed rates against a common currency.
Figure 6 – Customize Curves
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
FX Pricing Relationships
Foreign exchange forward prices are derived through an arbitrage‐free relationship between
currency interest and spot exchange rates. The basic idea is that the forward needs to be priced
such that a market participant cannot borrow money in one currency, buy a foreign currency
in the spot market, lend in the foreign currency, and then buy back the original currency at the
forward rate covering the original loan at a risk free profit. The dynamics of this relationship
can be better observed in figure 7.
Figure 7 ‐ FX Covered Arbitrage Square
In FXFA we are running a passive arbitrage analysis in which we are taking the “better path”
to the same result. For example, depositing money in a local currency can be synthetically
created by moving your money into a foreign currency, depositing in the foreign currency and
finally selling the foreign currency forward. In both cases you start off with an amount of your
local currency and you end up with your local currency plus some interest. As these two
trades will result in the same final cash flow, it makes sense for us to select the path that will
produce the highest yield. For example, when implying a lending rate FXFA helps us
determine if it makes more sense to lend in our first currency or to lend in our second currency
and perform the FX swap.
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FXFA - FX Covered Arbitrage User Guide
FX Pricing Equations
F = Forward
S = Spot
D = Denominator Interest Rate (Ccy 1)
N = Numerator Interest Rate (Ccy 2)
B = Bid
A = Ask
T = Time Factor
(1 + N BT ) (1 + N AT )
FB = S B F = S
(1 + DAT ) (1 + DBT )
A A
FB (1 + DBT ) FA (1 + D AT )
−1 −1
SB SA
NB = N A =
T T
S A (1 + N BT ) S B (1 + N AT )
−1 −1
FA FB
DB = D A =
T T
(1 + DBT ) (1 + DAT )
S B = FB S = FA
(1 + N AT ) A
(1 + N BT )
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