Quantitative Credit Portfolio Management : Practical Innovations for Measuring and Controlling Liquidity, Spread, and Issuer Concentration Risk

Credit portfolio managers traditionally rely on fundamental research for decisions on issuer selection and sector rotation. Quantitative researchers tend to use more mathematical techniques for pricing models and to quantify credit risk and relative value. The information found here bridges these two approaches. In an intuitive and readable style, this book illustrates how quantitative techniques can help address specific questions facing today's credit managers and risk analysts.

A targeted volume in the area of credit, this reliable resource contains some of the most recent and original research in this field, which addresses among other things important questions raised by the credit crisis of 2008-2009. Divided into two comprehensive parts, Quantitative Credit Portfolio Management offers essential insights into understanding the risks of corporate bonds―spread, liquidity, and Treasury yield curve risk―as well as managing corporate bond portfolios.

• Presents comprehensive coverage of everything from duration time spread and liquidity cost scores to capturing the credit spread premium
• Written by the number one ranked quantitative research group for four consecutive years by Institutional Investor
• Provides practical answers to difficult question, including: What diversification guidelines should you adopt to protect portfolios from issuer-specific risk? Are you well-advised to sell securities downgraded below investment grade?

Credit portfolio management continues to evolve, but with this book as your guide, you can gain a solid understanding of how to manage complex portfolios under dynamic events.

ARIK BEN DOR, PHD, is a Director and Senior Analyst in the Quantitative Portfolio Strategy (QPS) Group at Barclays Capital Research. He joined the group in 2004 after completing a PhD in finance from the Kellogg School of Management. Ben Dor has published extensively in the Journal of Portfolio Management, Journal of Fixed Income, and Journal of Alternative Investments.

LEV DYNKIN, PHD, is the founder and Global Head of the Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Group at Barclays Capital Research. Dynkin and the QPS group joined Barclays Capital in 2008 from Lehman Brothers where the group was a part of fixed income research since 1987—one of the longest tenures for an investor-focused research group on Wall Street.

JAY HYMAN, PHD, is a Managing Director in the Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Group at Barclays Capital Research. He joined the group in 1991 and has since worked on issues of risk budgeting, cost of investment constraints, improved measures of risk sensitivities, and optimal risk diversification for portfolios spanning all fixed income asset classes. Hyman helped develop a number of innovative measures that have been broadly adopted by portfolio managers and that have changed standard industry practice.

BRUCE D. PHELPS, PHD, is a Managing Director in the Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Group at Barclays Capital Research, which he joined in 2000. Prior to that, he was an institutional portfolio manager and head of fixed income at Ark Asset Management. Phelps was also senior economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, where he designed derivative contracts and electronic trading systems, and an international credit officer and foreign exchange trader at Wells Fargo Bank. Phelps is a member of the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal.