Why Floating-Rate Bond Prices Reveal Little About Longer-Term Rate Expectations

# Floating-rate bond


# Floating-rate bond












How can I extract expectations about future rates from prices of floating-rate bonds? Please, give reference to any articles, if possible. Thank you in advance.

## Answer by Jacob Amos (score 4)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/16515

While you may be able to arrive at some answer to this question empirically with a bit of research, theoretically I don't know if there is a formulaic/mathematical way to extract expectations of future rates from floaters.

The reason is that, theoretically, a floating rate note's price is determined only from the interest rate corresponding to the next payment/reset date, that is, ${t_{i + 1}} % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagKart1ev2aqatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmqr1ngBPrgitL % xBI9gBamXvP5wqSXMqHnxAJn0BKvguHDwzZbqegm0B1jxALjhiov2D % aeHbuLwBLnhiov2DGi1BTfMBaebbfv3ySLgzGueE0jxyaibaieYdh9 % qrpeeu0dXdh9vqqj-hEeeu0xXdbba9arpi0-irpK0dbba91qpK0-vr % 0RYxir-dbbc9q8aq0-yqpe0xbba9suk9fr-xfr-xfrpiWZqaaeaabi % GaciaacaqabeaadaabauaaaOqaaiabdsha0naaBaaaleaacqWGPbqA % cqGHRaWkcqaIXaqmaeqaaaaa!4575! $. On a floater's reset date, it is priced at par using $r\left( {{t_i},{t_{i + 1}}} \right) % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagKart1ev2aqatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmqr1ngBPrgitL % xBI9gBamXvP5wqSXMqHnxAJn0BKvguHDwzZbqegm0B1jxALjhiov2D % aeHbuLwBLnhiov2DGi1BTfMBaebbfv3ySLgzGueE0jxyaibaieYdh9 % qrpeeu0dXdh9vqqj-hEeeu0xXdbba9arpi0-irpK0dbba91qpK0-vr % 0RYxir-dbbc9q8aq0-yqpe0xbba9suk9fr-xfr-xfrpiWZqaaeaabi % GaciaacaqabeaadaabauaaaOqaaiabdkhaYnaabmaabaGaemiDaq3a % aSbaaSqaaiabdMgaPbqabaGccqGGSaalcqWG0baDdaWgaaWcbaGaem % yAaKMaey4kaSIaeGymaedabeaaaOGaayjkaiaawMcaaaaa!4C57! $. In between reset dates, it may not be priced at par, but its price is still determined using that same rate. So a floater's price should only be reflective of the rate attached to the next reset date. This is what the theory says anyway, market supply/demand may change some things.

Now, you might be able to make an argument that market forces will tend to change the floater's price in anticipation of what the price will be after the next payment. For example, if you have quarterly payments and you're getting close to a reset date, the price might depart from what it should theoretically be if investors look at the yield curve and see that the 0.25 year rate changed a lot from where it was when the last payment was made.

As for rates further out than ${t_{i + 1}} % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagKart1ev2aqatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmqr1ngBPrgitL % xBI9gBamXvP5wqSXMqHnxAJn0BKvguHDwzZbqegm0B1jxALjhiov2D % aeHbuLwBLnhiov2DGi1BTfMBaebbfv3ySLgzGueE0jxyaibaieYdh9 % qrpeeu0dXdh9vqqj-hEeeu0xXdbba9arpi0-irpK0dbba91qpK0-vr % 0RYxir-dbbc9q8aq0-yqpe0xbba9suk9fr-xfr-xfrpiWZqaaeaabi % GaciaacaqabeaadaabauaaaOqaaiabdsha0naaBaaaleaacqWGPbqA % cqGHRaWkcqaIXaqmaeqaaaaa!4575! $, I don't know how you'd extract those expectations, simply because the price will reset to par when the next payment is made. Maybe if the market moves the price away from par on a payment date or sufficiently far from its theoretical value in between payments you could glean an idea of where the market thinks rates are going. But you'd have to do some research to see if that's true.

(Sorry no articles/citations. These are just thoughts derived from floating rate bond pricing basics, which you can find pretty easily with Google.)