Is There a Novelty Premium on New Financial Instruments? The Argentine Experience with GDP-Indexed Warrants

This paper examines the Argentine experience with GDP-indexed warrants in order to gauge the existence of a novelty premium on new financial instruments. It develops a Monte Carlo pricing exercise to calculate the expected net present value of payments, on the basis of various forecast assumptions. The results show that the residual premium paid by these warrants over standard bonds declined significantly by about 600 basis points between December 2005 and July 2007. This suggests that financial innovation may be associated with premia, which decay reasonably fast. 5. US GDP Warrant Premiums Using Random Sampling from 1980-2007 ResidualsB. Comparisons with Investment Bank Valuations; 6. Factors Explaining Price Changes; 7. US GDP Warrant Theoretical Value Under Average Investment Bank Assumptions and Market Prices; 8. US GDP Warrant Premiums Using Average Investment Bank Assumptions; 9. US GDP Warrant Residual Premium Under Different Scenarios; VI. Other Valuation Exercises; A. Theoretical Values for the Arg GDP Warrant; 10. Arg GDP Warrant Using Random Sampling from 1981-2007 Residuals; B. Theoretical Values for the Euro GDP Warrant