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Total return swap

A contract where one party pays the entire return of an asset, including income and price change, and receives a financing rate in exchange.

The return receiver gets the economics of owning the asset without holding it; the return payer keeps legal ownership but has transferred the market exposure. Financing is embedded, so the receiver is effectively borrowing to hold the position.

Uses include synthetic index exposure for funds using synthetic-replication, balance sheet efficiency for banks, and access to markets where direct ownership is restricted. The structure is also how large concentrated equity positions can be built without triggering ordinary disclosure thresholds, which is what made the 2021 Archegos failure both possible and invisible to other counterparties.

The receiver bears both market risk and counterparty-risk, and margin terms determine how much leverage the position carries. See equity-swap and contract-for-difference.

Related: equity-swap, synthetic-replication, counterparty-risk, contract-for-difference, leverage, prime-broker

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

Margin and leverageA small deposit controlling a much larger position, and the point at which losses trigger a margin call.Position you controlnotional value $100,000your margin deposit: $5,000$100,000 / $5,000 = 20:1 leverageYour deposit absorbs every dollar of loss$5,000$2,500$0Equity leftMARGIN CALLequity has fallen to $2,5000%1%2%2.5%3%4%5%How far the price moves against you
Margin and leverage. A $5,000 deposit can control a $100,000 position, which is 20:1 leverage. Because the loss is measured on the full $100,000, a 2.5% move against you halves the deposit and brings a margin call, and a 5% move uses all of it.

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