In August 1996, the U.S. bank regulatory agenciesadopted the market risk amendment (MRA) to the 1988Basle Capital Accord. The MRA, which became effectivein January 1998, requires that commercial banks withsignificant trading activities set aside capital to cover themarket risk exposure in their...

Traditionally, regulation of banks has focused on the riskentailed in bank loans. Loans are typically nontradedassets. In recent years, another component of bank assetshas become increasingly important: assets actively tradedin the financial markets.1 These assets form the “tradingbook” of a...

[...]We begin by explaining the three most commoncategories of value-at-risk models—equally weighted movingaverage approaches, exponentially weighted movingaverage approaches, and historical simulation approaches.Although within these three categories many differentapproaches exist, for the...