Span Margin Calculation

STANDARD PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS of RISK (SPAN®)
Chapter 11
SPAN Overview
Developed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1988, the Standard Portfolio

Analysis of Risk (SPAN) performance bond margining system for calculating
requirements has become the futures industry standard.
SPAN evaluates the risk of an entire account’s futures/options portfolio and

assesses a margin requirement based on such risk. It accomplishes this by
establishing reasonable movements in futures prices over a one day period. The
resulting effect of these “risk arrays” is to capture respective gains or losses of
futures and options positions within that commodity. Each Exchange maintains the
responsibility of determining these risk arrays as well as the option calculations that
are needed to determine the effect of various futures price movements on option
values.
Advantages and Rationale of SPAN
SPAN recognizes the special characteristics of options, and seeks to accurately

assess the impact on option values from not only futures price movements but also
changes in market volatility and the passage of time. The end result is that the
minimum margin on the portfolio will more accurately reflect the inherent risk
involved with those positions as a whole.
Option Equity and Risk Margin
One of the special characteristics of options is that a long option position can never
be at risk for more than its premium. In order for SPAN to assess the risk of all
positions in the portfolio and at the same time allow credit for the premium involved,
SPAN allows the excess of the option premium over the risk margin for any option
position to be applied to the risk margin on other positions.
Margin Calculations
Under SPAN, firms will receive risk arrays from the respective clearing organizations
to calculate margins for their accounts. These firms will then calculate minimum
margin requirements for all of its accounts based on the arrays on a daily basis.
Individuals are able to calculate their own margin requirements through loading the
risk arrays and their positions into PC-SPAN.
11 - 1 July 1999
Risk Arrays
Under SPAN, each Exchange will provide risk arrays for each commodity traded.
These arrays are comprised of 16 “what if” scenarios that cover a range of
reasonable futures price and volatility changes over the course of a day. For
example, what if crude oil futures prices rose by $1 and volatility on crude oil
options fell? Each scenario measures the impact on profit and loss of the
hypothetical movements on futures and options positions within that commodity.
Each answer becomes a component of the risk array, and SPAN will take the largest
loss from that array as the minimum margin for the day. In order to construct arrays,
each Exchange provides both the futures and volatility scan ranges.
Futures Scan Range
The futures scan range is equal to a firm’s maintenance margin requirement for
outright positions. This represents the interval that a futures contract’s prices are
likely to move (up or down) over a single day. For example, if the scan range is
$1,500 for crude oil contracts, it implies that crude oil futures prices are most likely
to fluctuate within a band of $1.50/barrel up or down (since each contract represents
1,000 barrels) from the last settlement price. To construct the risk arrays, SPAN sets
fractions (multiples of 1/3) of the range both up and down as the plausible price
changes. Each commodity traded has its own scan range.
Volatility Scan Range
In addition to futures price changes, a major determinant of option value is the

inherent volatility that is expected in the market. Each Exchange will set parameters,
both up and down, for likely changes in expected market volatility. The impact on
option value of these hypothetical changes are then used to capture the profit (or
loss) on option positions, and hence the risk of options in a given portfolio.
Extreme Move Scenario
Each Exchange will set an extreme move parameter, usually set equal to a multiple
of the futures scan range, as well as a percent of this move it believes it needs to be
covered for possible abrupt changes of futures prices.
11 - 2 July 1999
Sixteen “What If” Scenarios
1. Futures unchanged, volatility up

2. Futures unchanged, volatility down
3. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility up
4. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility down
5. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility up
6. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility down
15. Futures up extreme move
(cover 35% of loss)
16. Futures down extreme move
(cover 35% of loss)
Other Factors Affecting SPAN Margin Requirements
In addition to the above risk arrays, each Exchange will also assess intermonth
spread charges, intercommodity spread credits, and short option minimum margins.
These will affect the final margin requirements for large portfolios.
The intermonth spread charges represent additional margin payments that are
assessed on positions on different contract months within a commodity that are on
opposite sides of the market. This is to capture the risk that price changes between
different contract months of the same commodity often do not match each other
exactly. In fact, there are often times when different contract months within the
same commodity experience opposite price change. Since this suggests a higher
level of risk to the portfolio, an additional margin charge is assessed to these spread
positions.
SPAN also recognizes that many commodities tend to experience similar price
movements. For offsetting positions in different commodities that are related, SPAN
allows certain credits be given to the portfolio’s total margin to reflect this lower
overall risk.
11 - 3 July 1999
Finally, unlike long option positions which have a maximum potential loss, the value
of the option premium, short options have virtually unlimited risk. SPAN accounts
for this characteristic of short option positions by having a minimum margin
assessed, regardless of the losses determined in the above risk arrays.
Each Exchange maintains the responsibility of setting the intermonth spread charge,
the intercommodity spread credit, and the short option minimum margin.
A Simple Margin Calculation
Assume a position contains a single long January Crude Oil futures contract.
Assuming an underlying futures price of $20, a SPAN futures scan range of $1,500,
and volatility scan range of 2%. The risk array would look like the following:
SCENARIO VALUE LOSS
1. Futures unchanged, volatility up $0

2. Futures unchanged, volatility down $0
3. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility up -$500
4. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility down -$500
5. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility up $500
6. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility down $500
7. Futures up 2/3 range, volatility up -$1,000
8. Futures up 2/3 range, volatility down -$1,000
9. Futures down 2/3 range, volatility up $1,000
10. Futures down 2/3 range, volatility down $1,000
11. Futures up 3/3 range, volatility up -$1,500
12. Futures up 3/3 range, volatility down -$1,500
15. Futures up extreme move (cover 35% of loss) -$1,050
16. Futures down extreme move (cover 35% of loss) $1,050
Scanning the value loss column, $1,500 can be seen to be the worst case loss, and
therefore becomes the margin. This also happens to be the outright margin level,
which illustrates that for simple outright positions, margin levels will be set the
same way as they are currently established.
11 - 4 July 1999
Suppose a position contains one short January $20 Crude Oil Call Option. The risk
array would look like the following:
SCENARIO VALUE LOSS

2. Futures unchanged, volatility down -$52
3. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility up $339
4. Futures up 1/3 range, volatility down $255
5. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility up -$170
6. Futures down 1/3 range, volatility down -$252
8. Futures up 2/3 range, volatility down $633
12. Futures up 3/3 range, volatility down $1,075
15. Futures up extreme move (cover 35% of loss) $890
16. Futures down extreme move (cover 35% of loss) -$159
To determine the margin, SPAN takes the maximum loss from the risk arrays (note:
negative values refer to gains). In the above example, the margin resolves to line 11:
$1,115.
11 - 5 July 1999
A somewhat more complicated example would be if we combined the two simple

positions above. Adding the two risk array results in the following:
SCENARIO VALUE LOSS

2. Futures unchanged, volatility down -$52
15. Futures up extreme move (cover 35% of loss) -$160
16. Futures down extreme move (cover 35% of loss) $891
In this case the worse case loss resolves to $1,104.
11 - 6 July 1999

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STANDARD PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS of RISK (SPAN®)

Developed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1988, the Standard Portfolio

SPAN evaluates the risk of an entire account’s futures/options portfolio and

Advantages and Rationale of SPAN

SPAN recognizes the special characteristics of options, and seeks to accurately

Option Equity and Risk Margin

Futures Scan Range

Volatility Scan Range

In addition to futures price changes, a major determinant of option value is the

Extreme Move Scenario

Sixteen “What If” Scenarios

1. Futures unchanged, volatility up

Other Factors Affecting SPAN Margin Requirements

A Simple Margin Calculation

SCENARIO VALUE LOSS

1. Futures unchanged, volatility up $0

SCENARIO VALUE LOSS

1. Futures unchanged, volatility up $37

A somewhat more complicated example would be if we combined the two simple

SCENARIO VALUE LOSS

1. Futures unchanged, volatility up $37

In this case the worse case loss resolves to $1,104.

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