Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: A, Wright State University (Raj Soin College of Business), 16 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Abstract Undertaking business always involves taking risk. The future development of a company and their business is more uncertain the higher the risk that the company is facing. Risk management is a important factor in operating business. With the development of future markets entrepreneurs and investors obtained another risk management tool that made it possible to reduce risk. Futures are derivatives that can be used either for speculating or risk management. Especially in the area of financial futures, a rapid growth could be observed during the last few decades. Almost every month a new type of contract appears to meet the needs of a continuously growing corporate and institutional market. This paper considers future contracts as hedging application to reduce price risk. Futures are standardized contracts to buy or sell an asset in the future. There are various types of futures which differ in the type of the underlying asset. Futures are traded at organized exchanges. We consider the trading of future, their requirements, and market participants and their motivation. Different commercial users of future contracts hedge in different ways. A long hedge is used to reduce price risk of an anticipated purchase whereas a short hedge reduces the price risk of an asset that is already held. If there is no exact, the hedgers needs matching, contract available, the hedger should use a cross hedging strategy. With all these strategies the hedger takes, to the asset opposite, a position in the future market that is highly correlated with the change in price of the asset in the spot market. Losses in one market are offset by gains in the other market. For a successful hedge it is essential to choose an appropriate contract an

This book is an invaluable resource of hedging case studies and examples, explaining with clarity and coherence how various instruments - such as futures and options - are used in different market scenarios to contain, control and eliminate price risk exposure. Its core objective is to elucidate hedging transactions and provide a systematic, comprehensive view on hedge performance. When it comes to hedge strategies specifically, great effort has been employed to create new instruments and concepts that will prove to be superior to classic methods and interpretations. The concept of hedge patterns - introduced here - proves it is possible to tabulate a hedging strategy and interpret its use with diagrams, so each example is shown visually with the result of radical clarity. A compelling visual pattern is also attached to each case study to give you the ability to compare different solutions and apply a best-fit hedging strategy in real-world situations. A diverse range of hedging transactions showing the ultimate payoff profiles and performance metrics are included. These have been designed to achieve the ultimate goal - to convey the necessary skills to allow business and risk management teams to develop proper hedging mechanisms and apply them in practice.

Books on complex hedging instruments are often more confusing than the instruments themselves. Hedging Instruments & Risk Management brings clarity to the topic, giving money managers the straightforward knowledge they need to employ hedging tools and techniques in four key markets—equity, currency, fixed income, and mortgage. Using real-world data and examples, this high-level book shows practitioners how to develop a common set of mathematical and statistical tools for hedging in various markets and then outlines several hedging strategies with the historical performance of each.

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,7, University of Mannheim, language: English, abstract: The commodity futures contract is an agreement to deliver a specific amount of commodity at a future time . There are usually choices of deliverable grades, delivery locations and delivery dates. Hedging belongs to one of the fundamental functions of futures market. Futures can be used to help producers and buyers protect themselves from price risk arising from many factors. For instance, in crude oil commodities, price risk occurs due to disrupted oil supply as a consequence of political issues, increasing of demand in emerging markets, turnaround in energy policy from the fossil fuel to the solar and efficient energy, etc. By hedging with futures, producers and users can set the prices they will receive or pay within a fixed range. A hedger takes a short position if he/she sells futures contracts while owning the underlying commodity to be delivered; a long position if he/she purchases futures contracts. The commonly known basis is defined as the difference between the futures and spot prices, which is mostly time-varying and mean-reverting. Due to such basis risk, a naïve hedging (equal and opposite) is unlikely to be effective. With the popularity of commodity futures, how to determine and implement the optimal hedging strategy has become an important issue in the field of risk management. Hedging strategies have been intensively studied since the 1960s. One of the most popular approaches to hedging is to quantify risk as variance, known as minimum-variance (MV) hedging. This hedging strategy is based on Markowitz portfolio theory, resting on the result that “a weighted portfolio of two assets will have a variance lower than the weighted average variance of the two individual assets, as long as the two assets are not perfectly and positively correlated.” MV strategy is quite well accepted, however, it ignores the expected return of the hedged portfolio and the risk preference of investors. Other hedging models with different objective functions have been studied intensively in hedging literature. Due to the conceptual simplicity, the value at risk (VaR) and conditional value at risk (C)VaR have been adopted as the hedging risk objective function. [...]

Don’t Miss out on Today’s Hottest Trading Arena: Commodity Options! “The authors have written the definitive work on trading commodity options. Their in-depth knowledge of this subject is legendary among industry professionals and expert traders alike, and their ability to relay their knowledge through text, pictures, and the spoken word is unparalleled in our industry.” –Lan Turner, CEO, Gecko Software, Inc. “This book captures the realities of commodity option trading in a simple and easy- to-read presentation that will be beneficial for traders of all sizes and skill levels.” –Chris Jarvis, CFA, CMT, Caprock Risk Management, LLC “Even the most experienced investors often overlook the fact that options on futures are fundamentally different from options on stocks. This book fills that gap and sets the record straight with clear and concise descriptions that are easy to understand. Guaranteed to become a true source of value creation for anyone interested in trading commodity options.” –Jeff Augen, author, The Volatility Edge in Options Trading “Commodity Options arms readers with the strategies and tactics needed to take a more active approach to managing risk in today’s turbulent markets. The authors exhaustively break down every component of a commodity option to its lowest common denominator, making this book an essential piece of information for those looking to expand their trading tool box or further build on existing option strategies.” –John Netto, Chief Investment Strategist, NetBlack Capital and author, One Shot–One Kill Trading Investors worldwide are discovering the enormous opportunities available through commodity options trading. However, because commodities have differing underlying characteristics from equities, commodity ­options behave differently as well. In this book, two of the field’s most respected analysts present strategies built from the ground up for commodity options. Carley Garner and Paul Brittain begin with a quick primer on how commodity options work, how they evolved, and why conventional options strategies often fail in the commodity options markets. Next, using detailed examples based on their own extensive research, they show how to leverage the unique characteristics of commodity options in your own trades. You’ll walk through trades from “top to bottom,” master both long- and short-option approaches, and learn powerful strategies usually ignored in options books. For example, the authors introduce synthetic swing trading strategies that systematically reduce volatility from the market. This book’s easy-to-use trading strategies are strategically employed by the author’s clients every day: With Commodity Options, you can work to put the odds in your favor, too! • Why commodity options are different—and what it means to you Understand key differences in the underlying assets and the logistics of market execution • Systematically rewrite the odds in your favor Four ways to make winning trades more likely—and losing trades less common • When to trade short options—and how to manage the risk Why careful option selling may improve your odds of success • Master strategies designed for diverse market conditions Combine long and short options to create the right strategy for any market opportunity • Exploit short-lived trends through “synthetic” swing trading Get the advantages of futures contracts without the volatility

This new edition presents a reader-friendly textbook with lots of numerical examples and accounts of real-life situations.