Convertible Arbitrage: Insights and Techniques for Successful Hedging

As a technologist charged with implementing a convertible arbitrage fund, this book was incredibly helpful. By reading it, I learned enough about the strategy and how it works to have intelligent conversations with portfolio managers and analysts and understand what needs to be done to make it work. The book covers the Greeks and why they matter, and gives explanations of the strategies that are easily understood, but whose details are laid out in sufficient depth that the layperson might not be able absorb them all the first time through.The books doesn't, and really can't, get into issues relating to data providers, prime brokers, and other execution-related topics. Yet it does cover almost every permutation of the strategy that you might find currently being implemented by a CA fund.Overall, I think that this book provides an excellent grounding in the strategy, is a very engaging read, and will be a good reference as your understanding of the subject grows.In closing, let me say this: The chapter on the Greeks alone justifies the purchase of this book. I have received questions from people wanting to know how I gained such depth of understanding in convertible/capital structure arbitrage so quickly, and I do not hesitate to hand them this book. (Well, maybe there is some hesitation.)

I am not saying this is not a good book. In fact, this is by far the best I had come across on Convertible Arbitrage. It's so informative and well written that it should be a handbook for hedge fund professionals or finance professors. However, it's far beyond the comprehension of the investment public who would surely be confused by the vast amount of greek alphabets, financial equations and graphs. Of course, for those affluent readers (time- and money-wise) who want to learn, say, Bearish Tilt Gamma Convertible Hedge, Vega Hedge thru Volatility Swap etc. despite the technicalities and scale issues facing individual investors, it's definitely not a bad bet.

I managed a convertible arbitrage portfolio for over 3 years from 1998-2002. When I began managing, the information found in this one book, had to be gathered from many different resources, if it was available at all. I wish this had been available when I first began. This book exposed me to techniques that I have not used before because of my investment mandate. Now I have them in my toolbox if I decide to hunt extra "alpha" for my portfolio.Some of the techniques are only applicable by arbitrageurs that are in foreign markets. Even these are creative and inspire great avenues for further thought. It was while studying these that the thought occurred to me that the book might not be useable by the individual investor unless they are highly unique.There are elements of this book that have the air of "promotion" to it. The first chapter cites the advantages of this technique in concert with other management styles. The returns and other statistics span from publication date back to 1995. 1994 was a profoundly difficult year for convertible arb managers and could possibly weakened Calamos' assertions (to be fair he acknowledges as much at the end of the book). Convertible arbitrage will have difficult comparisons when it operates in an environment of low volatility and rising rates unless all risk (and return) are hedged away.

This is no book for beginners, as I have a background in economics, econometrics, and trading, but I find the prose jumps over and casually breezes past assumptions, leaving me thinking I must have missed something. In almost each sentence and paragraph you have to absorb and absorb and keeping trying to figure out the author's angles on what he means. Currently I am on pages 139-140, and I find impatience when encountering one-time blithe statements like "In practice, some slight additions to the short position on the way up will lock in some gains and avoid a hedge ratio that is extremely low relative to the delta." Or, "The hedge ratio on a leveraged bullish tilt position should generally be slightly more than the hedge ratio on the un-levered bullish tilt position to reduce some of the added volatility in the return." The syntax while trying to be plain language, loses the reader. I keep asking what exactly is "generally be slightly more than the hedge ratio" mean in the context of a portfolio; and do you own one each of the levered and unlevered to reduce volatility, and if not how can I be so confident my hedge ratio is thus adjusted properly if the volatility is well, volatile? It is like he writes to impress, which is not a bad thing by itself. It's clear he's having a good time. But if read aloud at a conference of CEO's, I can envision them nodding their heads and furrowing their sagacious brows without actually a full understanding of what is said.So the prose is dense. But it eventually "sounds" right to the ear if read over a couple times quickly, but still loaded with very subtle ideas watered down into plain words which can makes me stop and pause to consider each idea as if it were some kind of rosetta stone to the prior material. At the same time it gets me to pause and think, which is an upside and rewards patience. But it's getting harder to gauge at this chapter how much progress I have made or not made, but I optimistically press on. I keep it hand so I can have more chances to peek inside this mysterious veil of conv arb. and learn something new and interesting.It would be helpful to have more specific details where a natural question of 'why?' occurs if asked by a reader. From my own perspective, formulas would be far more compact and precise in conveying these ideas. English studies or philosophy enthusiasts may find it an enjoyable challenge to discern the Da Vinci-code like meanings.