By issuing interest rate derivative contracts, market makers such as large banks are exposed to undesired risk. There are several methods for banks to hedge themselves against this type of risk; one such method is the stochastic programming model developed by Blomvall and Hagenbjörk (2022). The effectiveness of their model relies on accurate pricing of interest rate derivatives and risk factor analysis, both of which are derived from a term structure. Blomvall and Ndengo (2013) present a discretized multiple yield curve framework for term structure measurement that allows for price deviations. The model uses regularization to deal with noise inherent in market price observations, where the regularization counteracts oscillations in the term structure and retains the smoothness of the curve by penalizing the first and second-order derivatives. Consequently, the resulting model creates a trade-off between a smooth curve and market price deviations. Changes in policy rates adjusted by a country’s central bank significantly impact the financial market and its actors. In this thesis, the model developed by Blomvall and Ndengo (2013) was further extended to include these steps in conjunction with monetary policy meetings. Two models were developed to realize the steps in the risk-free curve. The first model introduced an additional deviation term to allow for a shift in the curve. In the second model, the weights in the regularization were adjusted to allow for rapid changes on days surrounding the closest monetary policy meeting. A statistical test was conducted to determine the performance of the two models. The test showed that the model with adjusted regularization outperformed the model with an additional deviation term as well as a benchmark model without steps. However, both step models managed to reduce in-sample pricing errors, while the model with an additional deviation term performed worse than the benchmark model for out-of-sample data, given the current parameter setting. Other parameter combinations would potentially result in different outcomes, but it remains conjectural.

Under de senaste 14 åren har den svenska kronan genomgått en period av depreciering mot många andra valutor. Detta väcker frågan om vad som ligger till grund för växelkursens rörelser. Denna studie ämnar därför undersöka om det öppna ränteparitetsvillkoret kan förklara relationen mellan förändringar i växelkurser och räntedifferenser på kort sikt. För att undersöka frågan har två regressionsmodeller konstruerats med räntedifferenser som förklarande variabel och fluktuationer i växelkursen som beroende variabel. Studien begränsas till att undersöka förhållandet mellan Sverige som inhemskt land och Euroområdet samt USA som utländska områden/länder. Eftersom euron och den amerikanska dollarn kategoriseras som “safe haven” valutor inkluderas safe haven teorin som en sekundär aspekt i analysen. Studien använder månadsvis data över perioden 1999-2022. Regressionsmodellernas resultat visar en korrelation som är något avvikande från det öppna ränteparitetsvillkoret. Regressionsmodellerna presenterar icke-signifikanta resultat och studiens slutsats är därmed att undersökningen inte presenterar tillräckligt med bevis för att säkerställa att den sanna relationen mellan räntedifferenser och förändringar i växelkursen skiljer sig signifikant från ränteparitetsvillkoret. / Over the past fourteen years the Swedish krona has undergone a period of depreciation against many other currencies. This raises the question of what factors drive the movements of the exchange rate. This study intends to examine if the open interest parity condition can explain the relationship between fluctuations in the exchange rate and the interest rate differentials in the short term. To examine the subject two regression models have been constructed with the interest rate differentials as the explanatory variable and fluctuations in the exchange rate as the dependent variable. The research is narrowed down to examine the relationship between Sweden as the domestic country and the euro area and USA as foreign areas/countries. As the euro and the american dollar are categorized as “safe haven” currencies the safe haven theory is also included as a secondary aspect of the analysis. The study utilizes monthly data over the period 1999-2022. The results of the regression models show a correlation that deviates somewhat from the open interest parity condition. The regression models present non-significant results and the study's conclusion is thus that the study does not present enough evidence to ensure that the true relationship between interest rate differentials and changes in the exchange rate differs significantly from the interest parity condition.