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Valuing Compounded Swaps with a Forward Measure

Article Quant Q&A · Author: Confounded

Summary

This note addresses the apparent difficulty of valuing a swap whose final payment compounds a sequence of floating-rate accruals. Although the payoff is a product of rates that need not be independent, the answer starts under a payment-date forward measure and applies the tower property of conditional expectation period by period. Assuming each accrual period ends when the next begins, the conditional expectation of the final-period factor can be replaced using the bond-price martingale property. Repeating this step reduces the product expectation to a ratio of discount bond prices.

That ratio can also be expressed as a product of capitalization factors built from forward rates, yielding a direct valuation expression. The derivation assumes the swap has not started at the valuation time, contiguous periods, and the stated bond-price relationship to the index. It provides an analytical identity rather than empirical evidence or a treatment of nonstandard schedules and market conventions.

Key ideas

  • A payment-date forward measure provides a framework for valuing the final compounded payoff.
  • The tower property lets the expectation be simplified one accrual period at a time.
  • The bond-price martingale property collapses the expected product to a discount-factor ratio.
  • For contiguous periods, the ratio can be written as a product of forward-rate capitalization factors.
  • The derivation assumes valuation before accrual begins and aligned consecutive periods.

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Full text
# Pricing of compounded swaps


# Pricing of compounded swaps












As far as I understand, a compounded swap rolls up individual payments into one final payment which becomes: $$ V(t_n) = N \prod_{i = 0}^{n-1}(1 + d_i L_i)-N $$

where $d_i$ is the day fraction for period $t_i$ to $t_{i+1}$ and $L_i$ is the index for the same period and where $N$ is deducted at the end because we assume no exchange of notional.

Now, to value this we need to calculate the expectation of $V(T)$ under some appropriate numéraire and measure, but we are dealing with products of various $L_i$'s which are, in general, not mutually independent, so it's not a simple matter of replacing with them forwards.

How is this then done? An internet search only revealed simple formulas using forwards. A good reference text would be welcome.

Add 1

Following suggestions in the comments, if I use the adjusted forward numéraire with maturity equal to the payment date $t_n$ and using $P(t_i, t_{i+1}) = \frac{1}{1 + d(t_i,t_{i+1}) L(t, t_{i+1})}$, then I get: $$ V(t) = P(t, t_n) \Bbb{E}^{Q^{t_n}} [V(t_n)|F_t] = N P(t, t_n) \left(\Bbb{E}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})} | F_t \right]-1\right) $$

but I'm not sure that this gets me anywhere.

## Answer by byouness (score 3)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/49828

Let us start from your last equation, and focus specifically on the expectation. Assuming that the end date of each period is the start period of the next, the idea is to simplify it using conditional expectations.

Since $t < t_{n-2}$, we can write using the tower property of conditional expectations: $$ \begin{aligned} \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})} \right] &= \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-2} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})} \times \frac{1}{P(t_{n-1}, t_{n})} \right]\\ &= \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[ \Bbb{E}_{t_{n-2}}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[ \underbrace{\prod_{i=0}^{n-2} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})}}_{\mathcal{F}_{t_{n-2}}-\text{measurable}} \times \frac{1}{P(t_{n-1}, t_{n})} \right] \right]\\ &= \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-2} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})}\times \Bbb{E}_{t_{n-2}}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[ \underbrace{\frac{P(t_{n-1}, t_{n-1})}{P(t_{n-1}, t_{n})}}_{\mathbb{Q}^{t_n}\text{martingale}} \right]\right]\\ &= \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-2} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})}\times \frac{P(t_{n-2}, t_{n-1})}{P(t_{n-2}, t_{n})} \right]\\ \end{aligned} $$

We can see that the product is getting smaller, since the term $P(t_{n-2}, t_{n-1})$ that appeared in the numerator will simplify with the the last term of the product. $$ \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})} \right] = \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-3} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})}\times \frac{1}{P(t_{n-2}, t_{n})} \right] $$ By repeating this operation, the product disappears (assuming that at pricing date $t$, the swap didn't start yet, i.e.: $t < t_0$), and you get: $$ \begin{aligned} \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} \frac{1}{P(t_i, t_{i+1})} \right] &= \Bbb{E}_{t}^{Q^{t_n}} \left[\frac{P(t_0, t_0)}{P(t_{0}, t_{n})} \right]\\ &= \frac{P(t, t_0)}{P(t, t_n)}\\ \end{aligned} $$

This ratio can also be written as a product of capitalization factors using Libor forwards as follows: $$ \frac{P(t, t_0)}{P(t, t_n)} = \prod_{i=0}^{n-1} \frac{P(t, t_i)}{P(t, t_{i+1})} = \prod_{i=0}^{n-1} 1 + d(t_i, t_{i+1}) L(t, t_i, t_{i+1}) $$

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.