The LIBOR market model, also known as the BGM Model (Brace Gatarek Musiela Model, in reference to the names of some of the inventors) is a
financial model of
interest rate
An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, t ...
s. It is used for pricing
interest rate derivatives, especially exotic derivatives like Bermudan swaptions, ratchet caps and floors, target redemption notes, autocaps, zero coupon swaptions,
constant maturity swap A constant maturity swap, also known as a CMS, is a swap that allows the purchaser to fix the duration of received flows on a swap.
The floating leg of an interest rate swap typically resets against a published index. The floating leg of a constant ...
s and spread options, among many others. The quantities that are modeled, rather than the
short rate or instantaneous forward rates (like in the
Heath–Jarrow–Morton framework) are a set of
forward rates The forward price (or sometimes forward rate) is the agreed upon price of an asset in a forward contract. Using the rational pricing assumption, for a forward contract on an underlying asset that is tradeable, the forward price can be expressed in t ...
(also called forward
LIBOR
The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate is an interest-rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimates what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. The resulting average rate is u ...
s), which have the advantage of being directly observable in the market, and whose volatilities are naturally linked to traded contracts. Each forward rate is modeled by a
lognormal
In probability theory, a log-normal (or lognormal) distribution is a continuous probability distribution of a random variable whose logarithm is normally distributed. Thus, if the random variable is log-normally distributed, then has a normal ...
process under its
forward measure, i.e. a
Black model leading to a Black formula for
interest rate caps. This formula is the market standard to quote cap prices in terms of implied volatilities, hence the term "market model". The LIBOR market model may be interpreted as a collection of forward LIBOR dynamics for different forward rates with spanning tenors and maturities, each forward rate being consistent with a Black interest rate caplet formula for its canonical maturity. One can write the different rates' dynamics under a common pricing
measure, for example the
forward measure for a preferred single maturity, and in this case forward rates will not be lognormal under the unique measure in general, leading to the need for numerical methods such as
Monte Carlo simulation
Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be determ ...
or approximations like the frozen drift assumption.
Model dynamic
The LIBOR market models a set of
forward rates
,
as
lognormal processes. Under the respective
-Forward measure
:
Here we can consider that
(centered process).
Here,
is the forward rate for the period