medium · FRM Part 2 Market Risk

A desk head argues that a new 'market-neutral' trade has a Marginal VaR of zero and therefore consumes no capital.

What is the most critical risk-management rebuttal to this 'free risk' claim based on the properties of Marginal VaR?

  1. Marginal VaR only captures idiosyncratic, asset-specific risk, which by construction can never mathematically be zero.
  2. Zero Marginal VaR implies perfect positive correlation with the existing portfolio, which is actually the more dangerous scenario.
  3. Marginal VaR is only a valid risk measure under normal return distributions, so it structurally misses fat-tail and jump risk entirely.
  4. Marginal VaR is a local derivative; as the trade is scaled, the portfolio composition changes and Marginal VaR will rise.

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