Immunization (finance) - Difficulties

Difficulties

Immunization, if possible and complete, can protect against term mismatch but not against other kinds of financial risk such as default by the borrower (i.e., the issuer of a bond).

Users of this technique include banks, insurance companies, pension funds and bond brokers; individual investors infrequently have the resources to properly immunize their portfolios.

The disadvantage associated with duration matching is that it assumes the durations of assets and liabilities remain unchanged, which is rarely the case.

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