Hedging Valuation Adjustment for Callable Claims

Darwinian model risk is the risk of mis-price-and-hedge biased toward short-to-medium systematic profits of a trader, which are only the compensator of long term losses becoming apparent under extreme scenarios where the bad model of the trader no longer calibrates to the market. The alpha leakages that characterize Darwinian model risk are undetectable by the usual market risk tools such as value-at-risk, expected shortfall, or stressed value-at-risk. Darwinian model risk can only be seen by simulating the hedging behavior of a bad model within a good model. In this paper we extend to callable assets the notion of hedging valuation adjustment introduced in previous work for quantifying and handling such risk. The mathematics of Darwinian model risk for callable assets are illustrated by exact numerics on a stylized callable range accrual example. Accounting for the wrong hedges and exercise decisions, the magnitude of the hedging valuation adjustment can be several times larger than the mere difference, customarily used in banks as a reserve against model risk, between the trader's price of a callable asset and its fair valuation.