In finance, an on the run security or contract is the most recently issued, and hence most liquid, of a periodically issued security. On the run securities are generally more liquid and trade at a premium to other securities. Other, older issues are referred to as off the run securities, and trade at a discount to on the run securities.

Examples

United States Treasury securities United States Treasury securities, also called Treasuries or Treasurys, are government debt instruments issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to finance government spending as an alternative to taxation. Since 2012, U.S. gov ...

have periodic auctions; the treasury of a given tenor, say 30 years, which has most recently been auctioned is the on-the-run security, while all older treasuries of that tenor are off-the-run. For

credit default swap A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a debt default (by the debtor) or other credit event. That is, the seller of the CDS insures the buyer against som ...

s, the 5-year contract sold at the most recent IMM date is the on-the-run security; it thus has a remaining maturity of between 4 years, 9 months and 5 years. A number of indices only hold on-the-run contracts, to ease trading.

Trades

When a new security is issued, becoming the new on-the-run security, buying the new contract and selling the old one is called ''

rolling Rolling is a type of motion that combines rotation (commonly, of an axially symmetric object) and translation of that object with respect to a surface (either one or the other moves), such that, if ideal conditions exist, the two are in contact ...

'' the contract. A

convergence trade Convergence trade is a trading strategy consisting of two positions: buying one asset forward—i.e., for delivery in future (going ''long'' the asset)—and selling a similar asset forward (going '' short'' the asset) for a higher price, in the ex ...

involves the difference in price between the on-the-run and the most recent off-the-run instrument: for long tenors, these are virtually the same instrument, and in any event, an on-the-run instrument becomes off-the-run upon the issue of a newer instrument. Thus, if the basis (difference in price) between an on-the-run and most recent off-the-run instrument becomes large, one may buy the off-the-run and sell the on-the-run in anticipation of the basis shrinking. This trade, for 30-year treasuries, is notable for having been practiced by Long-Term Capital Management.

External links

Treasury Yield Curve Methodology
{{finance-stub Securities (finance)