Market Risk
In order to calculate market risk, Chincarini [2006,
2007] used a simple value-at-risk (VaR) measure as well as one that corrected for skewness and kurtosis in returns; a Cornish-Fisher VaR.15 The analysis of VaR on August 31, 2006, could explain about 65% of Amaranth's losses. That is, a simple VaR calculation by risk managers at Amaranth would have indicated the potential in a worse case scenario (i.e., less than 1% of the time) of losing 65% of their actual losses. Thus, Amaranth's energy trades were, by construction, very risky from a market risk point of view. However, this should not be confused with "carelessness," because the strategy of the fund may have been designed for very high risk. The unexplained 35% of losses were thought to be caused by liquidity losses due to Amaranth's excessively large positions.