Inverse Floating Rate Note

An inverse floating rate note, or simply an inverse floater, is a type of bond or other type of debt instrument used in finance whose coupon rate has an inverse relationship to short-term interest rates (or its reference rate). With an inverse floater, as interest rates rise the coupon rate falls. The basic structure is the same as an ordinary floating rate note except for the direction in which the coupon rate is adjusted. These two structures are often used in concert.

As short-term interest rates fall, both the market price and the yield of the inverse floater increase. This link often magnifies the fluctuation in the bond's price. However, in the opposite situation, when short-term interest rates rise, the value of the bond can drop significantly, and holders of this type of instrument may end up with a security that pays little interest and for which the market will pay very little. Thus, interest rate risk is magnified and contains a high degree of volatility.

Read more about Inverse Floating Rate Note:  Creation, Issuers, Leverage and Valuation

Famous quotes containing the words inverse, floating, rate and/or note:

    Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul. The spirit sports with time.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.
    Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)

    No, in your rural letter box
    I leave this note without a stamp
    To tell you it was just a tramp
    Who used your pasture for a camp.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)