Posts Tagged ‘spreads’

Credit spreads

November 9th, 2009

The use of duration as a measure of interest rate risk implicitly assumes that there is no relationship between credit spreads and the level of risk-free rates. In fact it ignores credit spreads completely. In a stable interest rate environment, but where credit spreads are widening, the use of duration as a measure of changing economic value will tend to overstate the value of a bank’s assets and hence its economic value.