UBS marketed YES as market-neutral based on a combination of four options is sometimes referred to as an “Iron Condor”. UBS accounts subjected to YES treatment suffered losses of 12% to 14% in December 2018 when the S&P 500 dropped 9.2% because the overlay was more than 100% In this paper the authors we explain the option basics necessary to understand the YES strategy and illustrate how UBS actually implemented the strategy with predictably disastrous results. They also present how UBS described the strategy in its marketing materials.

Published in the PIABA Bar Journal, 20 (1): 99-122, 2013.

In the past, assessment of the reasonableness of municipal bond markups depended on anecdotal recollection of markups and subjective judgment about what was customary. Interested parties including regulators can now use the MSRB’s EMMA service to determine the markups charged on a set of transactions and can make precise and accurate statements about how unusual such markups were, controlling for many factors thought to effect the reasonableness of markups.

We analyze over 13.7 million customer trades, totaling $3.9 trillion in par amount traded in fixed-coupon, long-term municipal bonds. We estimate that investors were charged $10.65 billion in municipal bond markups between 2005 and 2013 in our sample – $6.45 billion in trades on which excessive markups appear to have been charged.

Our sample includes about 30 percent of the fixed-coupon municipal bond trades and so the total markups charged from 2005 to 2013 is likely to be at least $20 billion. $10 billion of this $20 billion in markups were charged on trades on which excessive markups appear to have been charged. These markups are a transfer from taxpayers and investors to the brokerage industry and could be largely eliminated with simple, low-cost improvements in disclosure.

Published in the Journal of Derivatives & Hedge Funds 19, 244-258 (November 2013).

Prior research on structured products has demonstrated that equity-linked notes sold to retail investors in initial public offerings are typically issued at above their fair market value. A particular type of equity-linked note reverse convertibles embed down-and-in put options and other investors relatively high coupon payments in exchange for bearing some of the downside risk of the equity underlying the note. We analytically study the magnitude of the overpricing of reverse convertibles – one of the most popular structured products on the market today – within a stochastic volatility model.

We extend the current literature to include analytical valuation formulas within a model of stochastic volatility – the Variance Gamma (VG) model. We show that these complex notes are even more overpriced than previously estimated when stochastic volatility is taken into account. As a result of their complex payouts and the lack of a secondary market to correct the mispricing, reverse convertible notes continue to be sold at prices substantially in excess of their fair market value.