Forward-Looking Forward Rates: The Term SOFR Paradoxes

In 2017, the Alternative Reference Rate Committee (ARRC) chose the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) as the replacement for USD LIBOR. Since this announcement, the LIBOR transition has been making steady progress. As part of this transition, term SOFR has been requested by market participants so that it can be referenced in financial contracts in the same way as LIBOR term rates.

Initially, the proposed scope of usage for Term SOFR was limited and discouraged. However, as the market evolved, it allowed for Term SOFR to potentially be referenced more broadly than originally designed. With a wider scope of usage, it is worth discussing the issues that could arise with Term SOFR. Here we highlight three paradoxes of Term SOFR that arise from the chicken-and-egg problem.

Chicken or the Egg: The Term SOFR Paradoxes

Term SOFR is different from the soon-to-be-retired LIBOR rate—not only due to the representation of the financing costs behind it, but also due to the way it gets published. The different publication method is the main reason why it creates three major paradoxes in what the LIBOR transition intends to achieve.

An “engineered” benchmark rate is prone to complex methodology, data failure, partial representation of the market expectations, and market manipulations. Since the Term SOFR rate relies on SOFR futures under the ARRC-endorsed methodology, a complex interest rate curve construction methodology is required, which adds model risk. It also demands more liquidity to satisfy the requirements that the future prices be representative of the market and available at all times.

Relying solely on futures market data biases, other instruments such as the cash market may have totally different expectations inferred from the prices. Unlike the LIBOR benchmarks that can serve both derivative and cash products, Term SOFR rates create an unwanted one-way dependency between the derivative and cash markets. In extreme circumstances, this could reduce the diversification effect of a portfolio and add systematic risk. Even worse, since the benchmark rate is “engineered,” people can “re-engineer” products to impact the published rate.

Ineffective Hedging with the Current Market Setup

Without Term-SOFR-based derivatives, hedging Term SOFR cash products are ineffective and inaccurate. Since the Term SOFR rate is “engineered,” the exact process to re-engineer it is required for exact hedging, which is almost impossible. Hedging with other SOFR-based derivatives works, but basis risk is inevitable. A portfolio immunization strategy can be only partially achieved, and a cash-flow-matching strategy is impossible. This creates even more trouble for lenders and corporate issuers compared to the LIBOR era. Although Term-SOFR-based derivatives may be allowed for hedging purposes in the future, it poses another challenge for regulators to enforce the rules.

Term SOFR can be unrepresentative or not even published on time due to the mechanics of how it is created. How the market will react to these events is unknown; however, this could potentially create financial system instability or raise doubts about the accuracy of the data. In the end, the LIBOR problems are not gone but instead have become worse.

If Not Term SOFR, What Happens Next?

It is imperative to reduce the complexity of the methodology to derive Term SOFR and to break the one-way dependency that is embedded in adopting the methodology. Improving the publication methodology of Term SOFR is one possible solution but may be too difficult of an ask. Instead, other benchmarks could emerge on the term rate scope if they can resolve the issues highlighted above. The market can easily welcome SOFR being dominant in the overnight market, but with multiple other benchmarks being popular in the term market.

What Should LIBOR Users Do?

Anyone holding LIBOR-linked securities—which will be falling back to Term-SOFR-linked securities, or newly issued Term-SOFR-linked securities—should be aware of the possible issues with this benchmark rate. Due to the underlying issues, corporate issuers may decide to call back the securities earlier than expected, without justification. This was already seen in the UK and Japan markets throughout 2021, when a large number of callable floaters were redeemed. In addition, a hedged portfolio may begin to exhibit basis error and inaccuracy. Depending on the type of firm, it may be a good time to seek advice/service on more accurate hedging such as initializing Term SOFR derivatives within the legal scope, switching off legacy LIBOR contracts to SOFR contracts, or at least conducting a thorough analysis of the performance and risk of Term-SOFR exposures.

Yudi Bai, Senior Financial Engineer at FactSet, also contributed to this article.

This article is related to a longer form article titled Term Risk Free Rates: Methodologies, Challenges, and Future that is being published in The Journal of Derivatives in the spring of 2022.

This blog post is for informational purposes only. The information contained in this blog post is not legal, tax, or investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.