Term Structure Modeling of SOFR: Evaluating the Importance of Scheduled Jumps

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As interest rate benchmarks move from LIBOR to overnight risk-free rates (RFR), it has become increasingly important for models to accurately capture the interest rate dynamics at the overnight tenor. Overnight rates closely track central bank policy rate decisions resulting, in highly discontinuous dynamics around scheduled meeting dates. In this paper, we construct a dynamic term structure model, which accounts for the discontinuous short-rate dynamics. We show that the model is able to jointly fit the overnight US policy rate, secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) and SOFR futures rates through the recent Fed hiking cycle. Comparing our model with a standard continuous time-homogeneous short-rate model, we find several indications that our model avoids the clear misspecification of the continuous model, in particular with regard to the short-rate dynamics around meeting dates of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). This effect begins to disappear as the term of the rates under consideration is increased, suggesting that diffusive dynamics are a reasonably accurate reflection of the evolution of market expectations embodied in longer-term interest rates.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2450009
JournalInternational Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance
ISSN0219-0249
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 2024

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Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 World Scientific Publishing Company.

    Research areas

  • FOMC, futures, jumps, SOFR

ID: 398547313