Trades in commodities,financial assets,and currencies: A triangle of arbitrage,hedging and speculative designs

This work brings three markets — (i) commodities (e.g., steel iron ores, electronic parts, oil), (ii) financial assets (such as various stocks, bonds, notes), and (iii) different currencies (like U.S. dollar, British pound, euro, yen and so on) and examines the scope of triple operations of arbitrage, hedging, and speculation. Trading of cross-listed cross-currency assets with arbitrage and hedging is already recorded and analyzed. Here one more dimension — cross-country trades in commodities are added, and speculation is juxtaposed too within one framework.     

衍生产品使用的目的:套期保值或套期获利?——以深南电期权合约为例

本文以完全避险观、基差逐利观和投资组合观为基础,分析了衍生产品使用的三种目的;结合套期保值的实践证据,探讨了衍生产品使用中套期保值和投机的关系;提出了衍生产品使用的目的不仅是进行风险对冲,而且是通过风险承担获得收益。本文以深南电油品期权合约为例,剖析了合约交易的目的及其对企业损益的影响,提出了明确套保目的、量化风险敞口、选择衍生产品、规避融资风险等操作思路。     

Options Arbitrage in Imperfect Markets

Option valuation models are based on an arbitrage strategy—hedging the option against the underlying asset and rebalancing continuously until expiration—that is only possible in a frictionless market. This paper simulates the impact of market imperfections and other problems with the “standard” arbitrage trade, including uncertain volatility, transactions costs, indivisibilities, and rebalancing only at discrete intervals. We find that, in an actual market such as that for stock index options, the standard arbitrage is exposed to such large risk and transactions costs that it can only establish very wide bounds on equilibrium options prices. This has important implications for price determination in options markets, as well as for testing of valuation models.     

利率互换市场交易结构与交易行为影响简析

由于利率互换兼有套期保值、投机和套利三种交易功能，交易动机的多样性导致了研判市场价格走势的复杂性。当前会计准则要求对IRS敞口进行市场公允价值盯市并确认当期损益，该文根据IRS历史价格波动分析，提出IRS业务压力测试的方法，并结合市场常见的交易策略和套利行为，剖析市场价格波动的影响因素，以期为客观评价及控制交易策略风险提供一些参考。     

Robust pricing and hedging under trading restrictions and the emergence of local martingale models

We pursue the robust approach to pricing and hedging in which no probability measure is fixed, but call or put options with different maturities and strikes can be traded initially at their market prices. We allow the inclusion of robust modelling assumptions by specifying a set of feasible paths on which (super)hedging arguments are required to work. In a discrete-time setup with no short selling, we characterise absence of arbitrage and show that if call options are traded, then the usual pricing–hedging duality is preserved. In contrast, if only put options are traded, a duality gap may appear. Embedding the results into a continuous-time framework, we show that the duality gap may be interpreted as a financial bubble and link it to strict local martingales. This provides an intrinsic justification of strict local martingales as models for financial bubbles arising from a combination of trading restrictions and current market prices.     

Using the short-lived arbitrage model to compute minimum variance hedge ratios: application to indices,stocks and commodities

The short-lived arbitrage model has been shown to significantly improve in-sample option pricing fit relative to the Black–Scholes model. Motivated by this model, we imply both volatility and virtual interest rates to adjust minimum variance hedge ratios. Using several error metrics, we find that the hedging model significantly outperforms the traditional delta hedge and a current benchmark hedge based on the practitioner Black–Scholes model. Our applications include hedges of index options, individual stock options and commodity futures options. Hedges on gold and silver are especially sensitive to virtual interest rates.     

Noise, equity prices, and hedging: A new approach

The existence of noise trading in equity markets has possible economic implications for arbitrage, and asset pricing. In terms of pricing, noise trading can lead to excess volatility which has been shown to influence the value of options and futures. Furthermore, option research shows that modeling volatility leads to improved hedging performance. To this end, we derive a general hedging model for equity index futures in the presence of noise trading. Our analysis shows how the level and dynamics of noise trading should influence a hedger's behavior. Finally, we empirically test our model using the NASDAQ-100 index futures and FTSE 100 index futures over the period of January 1998 to May 2003.     

Pricing and Hedging Discount Bond Options in the Presence of Model Risk

This paper focuses on pricing and hedging options on a zero-coupon bond in a Heath–Jarrow–Morton (1992) framework when the value and/or functional form of forward interest rates volatility is unknown, but is assumed to lie between two fixed values. Due to the link existing between the drift and the diffusion coefficients of the forward rates in the Heath, Jarrow and Morton framework, this is equivalent to hedging and pricing the option when the underlying interest rate model is unknown. We show that a continuous rangeof option prices consistent with no arbitrage exist. This range is bounded by the smallest upper-hedging strategy and the largest lower-hedging strategy prices, which are characterized as the solutions of two non-linear partial differential equations. We also discuss several pricing and hedging illustrations.     

Pricing by hedging and no-arbitrage beyond semimartingales

We show that pricing a big class of relevant options by hedging and no-arbitrage can be extended beyond semimartingale models. To this end we construct a subclass of self-financing portfolios that contains hedges for these options, but does not contain arbitrage opportunities, even if the stock price process is a non-semimartingale of some special type. Moreover, we show that the option prices depend essentially only on a path property of the stock price process, viz. on the quadratic variation. We end the paper by giving no-arbitrage results even with stopping times for our model class.      

Arbitrage pricing of defaultable game options with applications to convertible bonds

This paper is the first in a series that we devote to studying the problems of valuation and hedging of defaultable game options in general, and convertible corporate bonds in particular. Here, we present mathematical foundations for our overall study. Specifically, we provide several results characterizing the arbitrage price of a defaultable game option in terms of relevant Dynkin games. In addition, we provide important results regarding price decomposition of defaultable options. These general results are then specified to the case of convertible bonds, yielding in particular a decomposition of convertible bonds in an optional and a bond component.     

Arbitrage vs. informed short selling: Evidence from convertible bond issuers

Prior literature examines the effect of either informed or arbitrage short selling on equity markets. We test the relative importance of informed and uninformed short selling around convertible bond issues and earnings announcements for the same firms over the same time period. Convertible arbitrage short selling is associated with temporary price pressure, consistent with downward sloping demand curves. Earnings announcement short selling is consistent with informed traders who anticipate future returns. Firm-specific characteristics related to the cost of short selling similarly affect both informed and arbitrage short selling. Deal-specific characteristics capturing hedging demand also strongly determine convertible arbitrage short selling.     

CEO Age,Risk Incentives,and Hedging Strategy

We test whether managerial preferences explain how firms hedge, using hand‐collected data on derivative portfolios in the oil and gas industry. How firms hedge involves choosing between linear contracts and put options, and deciding whether to finance these hedging positions with cash on hand or by selling call options. The likelihood of being a hedger increases with chief executive officer (CEO) age, and near‐retirement CEOs prefer linear hedging instruments. The predictions of the managerial risk incentives theory of hedging strategy, according to which managers with convex compensation schemes avoid hedging strategies that cap upside potential, find no support in the data.     

金融衍生品对商业银行信贷风险控制的影响研究

近年来,许多中国企业从事金融衍生品交易受到重创并陷入财务困境,给相关银行带来巨大的信贷风险。本文从商业银行信贷风险控制的角度,首先探讨了企业利用金融衍生品进行套期保值的积极意义以及该业务一旦转化为投机给企业带来的巨大风险,发生这种转化的关键原因是其内部控制失效。商业银行不应对正常套期保值的企业惜贷,但必须对涉及金融衍生品交易的企业贷款提高风险意识,一方面要严格监控贷款企业的相关内部控制机制,另一方面也要建立银行自身与衍生品交易企业贷款有关的内部控制机制,这一机制包括事前防范、事中监控和事后处理三个方面。     

The exchange rate effect of multi-currency risk arbitrage

Carry trade arbitrage strategies typically involve multiple currencies. Limits to arbitrage in such a setting not only slow the adjustment to the fundamental equilibrium, but can also generate transitory over- or undershooting of each exchange rate in accordance with the marginal risk contribution of each speculative position to the overall arbitrage risk. The paper uses a natural experiment to identify a particular global arbitrage opportunity and shows that arbitrage risk hedging modifies the exchange rate dynamics in the predicted manner. New spectral methods are applied to obtain a more precise inference on the cross-sectional trading pattern of the arbitrageurs.     

Impact of macro-economic surprises on carry trade activity

Can official news and policy announcements affect foreign exchange speculation? A widespread speculative strategy in foreign exchange markets is carry trade. This paper explores the links between macro-economic news and foreign exchange options to identify macro-economic fundamentals most relevant to the pricing of downside risk – measured by risk reversals options contracts – to carry trade activity. Focusing primarily on the Japanese yen carry trade, we identify a significant impact of macro-economic surprises on dollar/yen risk reversals. The effect is sizeable, with news related to bilateral trade balance of particular concern. Moreover, there is a close link between risk reversals and speculative futures positions in Japanese yen. This allows us to quantify a substantial effect of macro-economic news on carry trade activity, with the cost of hedging as the transmission mechanism.     

Limits to arbitrage and hedging: Evidence from commodity markets

We build an equilibrium model of commodity markets in which speculators are capital constrained, and commodity producers have hedging demands for commodity futures. Increases in producers' hedging demand or speculators' capital constraints increase hedging costs via price-pressure on futures. These in turn affect producers' equilibrium hedging and supply decision inducing a link between a financial friction in the futures market and the commodity spot prices. Consistent with the model, measures of producers' propensity to hedge forecasts futures returns and spot prices in oil and gas market data from 1979 to 2010. The component of the commodity futures risk premium associated with producer hedging demand rises when speculative activity reduces. We conclude that limits to financial arbitrage generate limits to hedging by producers, and affect equilibrium commodity supply and prices.     

American futures options arbitrage: evidence from the Nikkei 225 options market

Previous studies have examined the profitability of European index options arbitrage. This paper adds to the literature by investigating the arbitrage profitability of American index options—the Nikkei 225 index futures options traded on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). Using the real-time bid–ask prices, we find evidence of profitable arbitrage opportunities, while the frequency of observations violating no-arbitrage bounds and the magnitude of arbitrage profits decrease with the level of transaction costs. Our results have implications for the analysis of American options market efficiency. Failure to use bid–ask prices may lead to biased conclusions.     

Hedging, hedge accounting, and speculation in a rational expectations equilibrium

This paper explains corporate hedging and speculation in a two period rational expectations model. A risk averse manager represents a firm that is priced in a risk neutral market. The manager enters into a cash flow hedge of a forecast transaction by taking a short position in the futures market. When the futures position is chosen, the manager possesses private information regarding the firm’s production capacity. Mandatory disclosure of the futures position in the financial statements allows the market to draw inferences over the manager’s information. These inferences affect the market’s pricing decision and in turn the manager’s hedging decision. The futures position taken is chosen not only to reduce price risk exposure but to signal some capacity level. In equilibrium, however, the market anticipates the manager’s strategy and is not fooled.Considering varying managerial preferences, we analyze three settings. In the basic setting speculation occurs whenever the manager prefers high market values in both periods. In the second setting we add transaction costs and find that speculation is less likely. Finally, we introduce uncertainty regarding the manager’s preferences. If the market needs to determine prices based on expected preferences, incentives to speculate are mitigated in equilibrium but still present.     

Arbitrage,Continuous Trading,and Margin Requirements

This paper studies the impact that margin requirements have on both the existence of arbitrage opportunities and the valuation of call options. In the context of the Black-Scholes economy, margin restrictions are shown to exclude continuous-trading arbitrage opportunities and, with two additional hypotheses, still to allow the Black-Scholes call model to apply. The Black-Scholes economy consists of a continuously traded stock with a price process that follows a geometric Brownian motion and a continuously traded bond with a price process that is deterministic.