This post will bring to a close, for now, our survey of the requirements of new Rule 18f-4, which investment companies must comply with by August 19, 2022. This post considers whether a Chief Compliance or Risk Officer should seek to treat some or all of their funds as Limited Derivatives Users and
LEVERAGE
Compliance with Rule 18f-4 by a Fund-of-Funds
The release adopting Rule 18f-4 (the “Adopting Release”) devotes an entire section to discussing how “a fund that invests in other registered investment companies (‘underlying funds’)” should comply with the value-at-risk (“VaR”) requirements of the rule. This post considers three circumstances in which a fund investing in underlying funds:
- Does not invest in any derivatives
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Assessing the Limited Derivatives User Requirements of Rule 18f-4—Notional Amounts
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…
Assessing the Limited Derivatives User Requirements of Rule 18f-4—Costs
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…
Compliance Checklist for Limited Derivatives Users
As has been our practice in this series on new Rule 18f-4, we end our survey of its Limited Derivatives User requirements with a compliance checklist. This checklist reiterates much of our earlier post on Derivatives Exposure: Why It Matters And How To Calculate It, but provides more details and includes required…
Rule 18f-4: One 10% Buffer or Many?
This post continues our examination of the “10% buffer” for Hedging Derivatives, which refers to the amount by which the notional amounts of Hedging Derivatives can exceed the value, par or principal amount of the hedged equity and fixed-income investments. In this post we consider whether funds should apply the 10% buffer to Hedging…
Rule 18f-4: The 10% Buffer and Adjusting Notional Amounts of Hedges
We promised a few posts back to discuss how a Limited Derivatives User should apply what we termed the “10% buffer” to determine whether currency and interest-rate derivatives may be excluded from its derivatives exposure. This post begins to tackle the question What is the 10% Buffer? and explain how it might work.
What
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Limited Derivatives Users—Applying the Interest Rate Hedging Exclusion
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.…
Dealing with the New Derivatives Rule: A Guide for Legal and Compliance Professionals (IAA Newsletter September 2021)
Today, the Investment Adviser Association published the attached article (Link to Article Dealing with the New Derivatives Rule) in its September 2021 IAA Newsletter.
At a high level, the article:
- Provides a background on the limitations on senior securities under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “1940 Act“);
- Affords readers with
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Limited Derivatives Users—Applying the Currency Hedging Exclusion
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…