The DiscountCurve command creates a new yield curve based on the specified discount factors; the resulting curve is represented as a module. This module can be passed to other commands of the Finance package that expect a yield term structure as one of the parameters; it can also be used as if it were a procedure. Assume for example that the module returned by DiscountCurve was assigned to the name R. Then for any positive constant t,  will return a discount factor for the maturity t based on the term structure R. If d is a date given in any of the formats recognized by the ParseDate command, then the  command will return the discount factor for the corresponding maturity.

The DiscountCurve(rate, opts) command creates a zero curve based on the specified interest rate. The parameter rate can be either a real constant, a Maple procedure or an algebraic expression. If rate is a real constant then the DiscountCurve command contracts a flat term structure based on the specified interest rate. If rate is a procedure it should accept one parameter (the time) and return the corresponding rate as a floating-point number. Finally, if rate is an algebraic expression, it should depend on a single variable. This variable will be taken as time.

The DiscountCurve(times, rates, opts) and DiscountCurve(dates, rates, opts) commands create a term structure based on piecewise interpolation of specified discount factors. The parameters rates and times can be either a list or a Vector containing numeric values and must have the same number of elements. The parameter dates is a list of dates in one of the formats recognized by ParseDate.

Objects created using the DiscountCurve command will be of Maple type YieldTermStructure.

compounding = Simple, Continuous, Annual, Semiannual, EveryFourthMonth, Quarterly, Bimonthly, Monthly, SimpleThenAnnual, SimpleThenSemiannual, SimpleThenEveryFourthMonth, SimpleThenQuarterly, SimpleThenBimonthly, or SimpleThenMonthly -- This option specifies the compounding type for the given discount factor(s).

daycounter = Actual360, Actual365Fixed, AFB, Bond, Euro, Historical, ISDA, ISMA, OneDay, Simple, Thirty360BondBasis, Thirty360EuroBondBasis, Thirty360European, Thirty360Italian, Thirty360USA, or a day counter data structure -- This option specifies the convention used to convert the amount of time between two dates to year fractions.

interpolation = BackwardFlat, Cubic, ForwardFlat, Linear, or LogLinear -- This option specifies the type of interpolation used to build a discount curve from a discrete set of discount factors. The LogLinear interpolation is used by default.

referencedate = date in any of the formats recognized by the ParseDate command -- This option specifies the reference date (when the discount factor is equal to 1).

The Finance[DiscountCurve] command was introduced in Maple 15.

For more information on Maple 15 changes, see Updates in Maple 15.

Brigo, D., Mercurio, F., Interest Rate Models: Theory and Practice. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2001.

Hull, J., Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, 5th. edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.