8010 Exam Dumps : Operational Risk Manager (ORM) Exam

While conceptually VaR is a fairly straightforward concept, a number of decisions need to be made to select between the different choices available for the exact mechanism to be used for the calculations.

The Basel framework requires banks toestimate VaR at the 99% confidence level over a 10 day horizon. Yet this is a decision that needs to be explicitly made and documented. Therefore 'I' is a correct choice.

At various stages of the calculations, portfolio values need to be determined. The valuation can be done using a 'full valuation', where each position is explicitly valued; or the portfolio(s) can be reduced to a handful of risk factors, and risk sensitivities such as delta, gamma, convexity etc be used to value the portfolio. The decisionbetween the two approaches is generally based on computational efficiency, complexity of the portfolio, and the degree of exactness desired. 'II' therefore is one of the decisions that needs to be made.

The decision as to disclosing the VaR in financial filings comes after the VaR has been calculated, and is unrelated to the VaR calculation system a bank needs to set up. 'III' is therefore not a correct answer.

Though the Basel framework requires a 10-day VaR to be calculated, it also allows the calculation of the 1-day VaR and and scaling it to 10 days using the square root of time rule. The bank needs to decide whether it wishes to scale the VaR based on a 1-day VaR number, or compute VaR for a 10 day period to begin with. 'IV' therefore is a decision tobe made for setting up the VaR system.

Statement I is correct as credit VaR calculations often use a one year time horizon. This is primarily because the cycle in respect of credit related activities, such as loan loss reviews, accounting cycles for borrowers etc last a year.

Statement II is false. There are two ways in which loss assessments in respect of credit risk can be made: default mode, where losses are considered only in respect of default, and no losses are recognized in respect of the deterioration of the creditworthiness of the borrower (which is often expressed through a credit rating transition matrix); and the mark-to-market mode, where losses due to both defaults and credit quality are considered. The default mode is used for the loan book where the institution has lentmoneys and generally intends to hold the loan on its books till maturity. The mark to market mode is used for traded securities which are not held to maturity, or are held only for trading.

Statement III is correct. The confidence interval, or the quintile of losses used for maintaining credit ratings tends to be very high as the possibility of the institution's default needs to be remote.

Statement IV is correct too, for the reasons explained earlier.

If the current level of the S&P 500 is 2000, and a single day volatility is 1%, and the delta (ie change in portfolio value from a one point change) is $100, then the 1 day volatility for the portfolio in dollars is 2000 * 1% * $100 = $2,000.

At the 99% confidence level, the value of the inverse cumulative density function for the normal distribution is 2.33 (=NORMSINV(99%), in Excel). Therefore the 1 day VaR will be 2.33 * $2000 =$4,660. Extending it to 10 days using the square root of time rule, we get the 10 day VaR as equal to SQRT(10)*4660 = $14,736.

Since this method of calculating VaR relies upon a delta approximation of a risk factor (in this case the S&P500), it is the parametric approach to calculating VaR (the other methods being historical simulation, and Monte Carlo simulation).

The 2015 Handbook provides an excellent example of parametric (and other) VaR calculations in Chapter 3 of Volume III of Book 3. The spreadsheet used for the illustration can be downloaded from