8008 Exam Dumps : PRM Certification - Exam III: Risk Management Frameworks, Operational Risk, Credit Risk, Counterparty Risk, Market Risk, ALM, FTP - 2015 Edition

Explantion:

Changing leverage does not affect the Sharpe ratio or the Information ratio. However, leverage magnifies both risk and return. Therefore Choice 'b' is the correct answer.Recall that Sharpe ratio is the ratio of the excess returns (over the risk free rate) of an investment to its standard deviation, and the information ratio is the ratio of the 'alpha' returns to the standard deviation of such returns.

Suppose during a historical event interest rates rose from 2% to 2.25%. This can be understood as a change of either 25 basis points, or a change of 12.5%. When applied to the current portfolio when interest rates are 0.50%, we may model this 'shock' as either a rise to 0.75%, or 0.5625% (ie a rise of 12.5% over existing levels). The former is called an absolute shock, and the latter a relative shock.

I is true as relative shocks can never change the sign of a risk factor. Yet interest rate changes are modeled as absolute changes as relative shocks can get artificially amplified or attenuated if the current level of interest rates is too different from those that existed during the crisis being modeled. Therefore II is true. III and IV are false as volatility is modeled as a relative shock and spreads are modeled as absolute shocks.

Statement I is not correct as VaR does not set an upper limit on losses. In this case, the bank expects the losses to exceed $253m 5% of the times, and the VaR number does not indicate any theoretical maximum amount of losses.Statement II is incorrect as there is a 95% (and not 5%) probability that the bank's losses will not exceed $253mStatement III is correct and describes VaR.Statement IV is incorrect, as regulatory capital is a more complex computation for which VaR is only one of the various input.Therefore Choice 'b' is the correct answer.