Template:M summ GMSLA Market Value

The starting point is that the Lender determines all market values. This stands to reason: the collateral should be fairly liquid and its value is of no particular moment in the context of the trade — if it drops you just get more of it. Whereas the loaned Securities very much are the focus of all the attention. The Borrower is incentivised to mark them down in value: it is shorting them, after all. But the Lender must have regard to mid-market published closing prices which somewhat curtails scope for mendacity, at least while the market is orderly and the stock trading. Of course, where you are shorting, you are kind of hoping the market won’t be orderly, and the stock might corkscrew into the side of a hill. In which case, after a meandering menu of fallbacks, dealer polls and so on, it regresses to what the Lender thinks it is. Ultimately the Borrower’s remedy in that case is to find the stock elsewhere and give it back.

Don’t forget that when that Market Value is to be applied to Collateral, you need to include also the Margin — the expression in the 2010 GMSLA for the haircut applied to a given piece of collateral for its inherent illiquidity and the variability of price it might represent.

How often to valuation disputes lead to a dealer poll among Reference Dealers, you might ask?

Not often.