Currency total return swaps: valuation and risk factor analysis

Currency total return swaps (ctrs) are hybrid derivative instruments that allow us to simultaneously hedge against credit and currency risks. We develop a structural credit risk model to evaluate ctrs premia. An empirical test on a sample of 23,005 price observations from 59 underlying issuers yields an average percentage error of around 10%. This indicates that, beyond interest rate risk, firm-specific factors are major drivers of the variations in the valuation of these instruments. Regression analysis of residuals shows that exchange rate determinants account for up to 40% of model pricing errors, indicating that a currency risk premium affects the ctrs price significantly but only marginally, which confirms the prevalence of credit risk in the pricing of ctrs.