buy-side use of derivatives

In March 2020, we published a post entitled Master Agreements and Volatile Markets: Decline in Net Asset Value Provisions.

We believe that the March 2020 post is particularly relevant in light of the cascading nature of stock market declines over the past year, and on-going market commentary and debates about the likelihood and extent

As with Fund-of-Funds, the release adopting Rule 18f-4 (the “Adopting Release”) devotes a section to sub-advised funds. We again consider three types of funds:

  • VaR Funds in which a sub-adviser manages their entire portfolio (“Single Sub-Adviser Funds”);
  • VaR Funds in which one or more sub-advisers manage a portion or “sleeve” of their portfolio (“Sleeve

This post continues our assessment of whether the Limited Derivatives User requirements of Rule 18f-4(c)(4) effectively and efficiently accomplish the SEC’s aim of providing “an objective standard to identify funds that use derivatives in a limited manner.” Here we question whether the “gross notional amount” of a derivatives transaction measures the

Our last series of posts on Rule 18f-4 have struggled to understand how its Limited Derivatives User requirements are supposed to work. We have done the best we could to explain the process for calculating a fund’s derivatives exposure, including determining the gross notional amount of derivatives transactions and adjustments thereto, excluding closed-out positions

This post will address another ambiguity in the “10% buffer” Rule 18f-4 provides for excluding the notional amount of derivative transactions that hedge currency or interest rate risks (“Hedging Derivatives”) when calculating the Derivatives Exposure of a Limited Derivatives User. The ambiguity is whether, once the notional amount of a Hedging Derivative

By Stephen A. Keen and Andrew P. Cross

Our last post examined examples of currency hedges that we believe Rule 18f‑4(c)(4)(i)(B) should allow a fund seeking to comply with the Limited Derivatives User requirements to exclude from its derivatives exposure. This post struggles with examples of interest-rate hedges that may, or may not, be excluded.

By Stephen A. Keen and Andrew P. Cross 

Our last two posts surveyed what Rule 18f-4 and its adopting release (the “Release”) tell us about excluding currency and interest-rate derivatives from the derivatives exposure of a fund seeking to comply with the Limited Derivatives User requirements of Rule 18f-4(c)(4). The Release indicates that