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Pricing a LIBOR Cash Flow with the Payment-Date Forward Measure

Article Quant Q&A · Author: finfree

Summary

The document explains how to price a LIBOR cash flow fixed at time T and paid at T plus a tenor period. It addresses which numéraire is appropriate for changing from the risk-neutral measure and whether that change remains valid when the accrual period has ended. The key modeling step is to use the zero-coupon bond maturing on the cash-flow payment date as numéraire.

Under that forward measure, the LIBOR rate associated with the same accrual period is a martingale up to its fixing date. The pricing argument applies the numéraire-change identity on information available at or before that fixing date, then uses the martingale property to replace the conditional expected fixing rate with its current forward rate. The answer emphasizes that this reasoning is limited to times no later than the fixing date; it does not justify extending the same conditional expectation beyond that horizon.

Key ideas

  • Choose the payment-date zero-coupon bond as numéraire for the LIBOR cash flow.
  • The associated forward measure makes the matching LIBOR rate a martingale through its fixing date.
  • Apply the measure-change identity to information available no later than the fixing date.
  • The resulting price equals the payment-date bond price multiplied by the current forward LIBOR rate.

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Full text
# Pricing of LIBOR based CF settled after the LIBOR fixing by switching from risk-neutral to forward-neutral measures


# Pricing of LIBOR based CF settled after the LIBOR fixing by switching from risk-neutral to forward-neutral measures












When deriving the LIBOR-based swap rate formula in any interest rate model, expressions of the following types appear naturally:

Literature tells us that, switching to the – forward neutral measure, it is equal to:

where the expressions and represent the time-t forward and time-T spot Libor rates respectively.

On one hand, performing the change of measure using the time- Radon-Nikodym derivative leads directly to the desired result.

However, it seems to me that we are not entitled to do so because is defined only up to time T and it wouldn’t make sense to apply to a security that is no longer defined at time , would it?

On the other hand, performing the change of measure using the time-T Radon-Nikodym derivative makes more sense to me, but leads to the presence of terms that I don't know how to simplify in the thus obtained forward-neutral expectation.

Hence the following questions:

- Should the change of measure be done using or ?

- If it should be done using , how is it compatible with the fact that is no longer defined fot t > T?

- If it should be done using , how can we simplify the expression ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

## Answer by byouness (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/68530

The numéraire changing formula tells us that for a tradeable asset $X$, and two numéraires $N$ and $M$ we can write (by $\mathbb{E}^N$ I denote the expectation under the martingale measure associated to numéraire $N$): $$ N_t\times\mathbb{E}^N_t \left[\frac{X_{T_1}}{N_{T_1}} \right] = M_t\times\mathbb{E}^M_t \left[\frac{X_{T_1}}{M_{T_1}} \right] $$

This formula is not necessarily valid on $\sigma$-algebra $\mathcal{F}_{T_1}$! In general, it will be valid on a $\sigma$-algebra $\mathcal{F}_{T_2}$ with $T_2 \leq T_1$.

On the one hand, your LIBOR flow is $\mathcal{F}_T$-measurable, so we will work with $t \leq T$.

On the other hand, the natural numéraire to use is the zero-coupon bond with same maturity as your LIBOR flow: $T+\delta$. This is because the LIBOR flow can be seen as a basket of zero-coupon bonds, expressed in terms of a this numéraire: $$ L_T(T,T+\delta) = \frac{1}{\delta} \left(\frac{P_T^T - P_T^{T+\delta}}{P_T^{T+\delta}}\right) $$ In mathematical terms, this means that the LIBOR flow is a martingale under the measure associated to this numéraire.

So, applying the above formula for your LIBOR flow, one gets: $$ B_t \times \mathbb{E}_t^\mathbb{Q} \left[\frac{L_T(T, T+\delta)}{B_{T+\delta}} \right] = P_t^{T+\delta} \times \mathbb{E}_t^{\mathbb{Q}_{T+\delta}}\left[\frac{L_T(T, T+\delta)}{P_{T+\delta}^{T+\delta}} \right] $$ which simplifies to: $$ \begin{aligned} \mathbb{E}_t^\mathbb{Q} \left[ e^{-\int_t^{T+\delta} r(u)du }L_T(T, T+\delta) \right] &= P(t, T+\delta) \times \mathbb{E}_t^{\mathbb{Q}_{T+\delta}} \left[L_T(T, T+\delta)\right] \\ &= P(t, T+\delta) \times L_t(T,T+\delta) \end{aligned} $$

However, as noted above, this is valid only in $\mathcal{F}_T$, so only for $t \leq T$!

## Answer by finfree (score 0)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/68601

here is a solution inspired by the exercise 10.12 from Shreve's book "stochastic calculus for finance II":

- change of measure, the trick consisting in applying the law of iterated expectation:

$$E_t^Q\left[e^{-\int_{u=t}^{T+\delta}r_udu}\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]=E_t^Q\left[E_T^Q\left[e^{-\int_{u=t}^{T+\delta}r_udu}\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]\right]=E_t^Q\left[e^{-\int_{u=t}^{T}r_udu}\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\times E_T^Q\left[e^{-\int_{u=T}^{T+\delta}r_udu}\right]\right]=E_t^Q\left[\frac{B_t}{B_T}\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\times P_T^{T+\delta}\right]=E_t^Q\left[\left(\frac{B_t}{B_T}\times \frac{P_T^{T+\delta}}{P_t^{T+\delta}}\right)\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]\times P_t^{T+\delta}=E_t^Q\left[\frac{dQ^{T+\delta}}{dQ}|_T\times L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]\times P_t^{T+\delta}=E_t^{Q_{T+\delta}}\left[L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]\times P_t^{T+\delta}$$

- proof that $L_t(T,T+\delta)$ is a martingale under the $T+\delta$-forward measure:

$$1+\delta L_t(T,T+\delta)=\frac{P_t^T}{P_t^{T+\delta}}=\frac{E_t^Q\left[\frac{B_t}{B_T}\right]}{P_t^{T+\delta}}=E_t^Q\left[\left(\frac{B_t}{B_T}\times \frac{P_T^{T+\delta}}{P_t^{T+\delta}}\right)\times \frac{P_T^T}{P_T^{T+\delta}}\right]=E_t^Q\left[\frac{dQ^{T+\delta}}{dQ}|_T\times \left(1+\delta L_T(T,T+\delta)\right)\right]=E_t^{Q_{T+\delta}}\left[1+\delta L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]$$

we thus have: $L_t(T,T+\delta)=E_t^{Q_{T+\delta}}\left[L_T(T,T+\delta)\right]$

Combining the both equalities leads to the result.

Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.