Optimal clearing margin,capital and price limits for futures clearinghouses

We provide a model for a futures clearinghouse to use for setting optimal levels of clearing margin, capital and price limits, which minimizes the costs to clearing firms and simultaneously protects the clearinghouse from default by clearing firms. We show how to estimate the capital requirement, which supports the clearinghouse’s residual default risk that is not covered by the clearing margin. We apply our model to the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and demonstrate that price limits reduce the sum of optimal clearing margin and capital to a level that is substantially lower than that required in the absence of price limits.     

Margins and Price Limits in Taiwan's Stock Index Futures Market

This study extends the framework of Brennan (1986) to find the cost-minimizing combination of spot limits, futures limits, and margins for stock and index futures in the Taiwan market. Our empirical results show that the cost-minimization combination of margins, spot price limits, and futures price limits is 7 percent, 6 percent, and 6 percent, respectively, when the index level is less than 7,000. When the index level ranges from 7,000 to 9,000, the efficient futures contract calls for a combination of 6.5 percent, 5 percent, and 6 percent. The optimal margin, reneging probability, and corresponding contract cost are less than those without price limits. Price limits may partially substitute for margin requirements in ensuring contract performance, with a default risk lower than the 0.3 percent rate that is accepted by the Taiwan Futures Exchange. On the other hand, though imposing equal price limits of 7 percent on both the spot and futures markets does not coincide with the efficient contract design, it does have a lower contract cost and margin requirement (7.75 percent) than that without imposing price limits (8.25 percent).     

Analytical bounds for Treasury bond futures prices

The pricing of delivery options, particularly timing options, in Treasury bond futures is prohibitively expensive. Recursive use of the lattice model is unavoidable for valuing such options, as Boyle in J Finance 14(1):101?C113, (1989) demonstrates. As a result, the main purpose of this study is to derive upper bounds and lower bounds for Treasury bond futures prices. This study first shows that the popular preference-free, closed form cost of carry model is an upper bound for the Treasury bond futures price. Then, the next step is to derive analytical lower bounds for the futures price under one and two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross models of the term structure. The bound under the two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model is then tested empirically using weekly futures prices from January 1987 to December 2000.     

Single-stock futures: Evidence from the Indian securities market

Although single-stock futures (SSFs) are useful multi-purpose stock derivatives, they have not received much attention in developed markets. We analyze SSFs in the Indian market to understand their contribution in price leadership. The findings indicate that trades in the stock market contribute more to price discovery than trades in the SSF market (72% and 28%, respectively), while quotes in the SSF market are more price innovative than quotes in the stock market (39% and 61%, respectively). Our analysis suggests that while stock and SSF trade returns have predictive ability for each other, in the case of quotes, only SSF quotes have predictive ability for stock and SSF returns.     

How do risk attitudes of clearing firms matter for managing default exposure in futures markets?

This article proposes a theoretical framework that is built upon extreme value theory to study three instruments (i.e. margin, capital requirement and price limits) for managing default risk in futures markets. Specifically, the exceedances over a price threshold are modeled using a generalized Pareto distribution, and the models are static (one-period). We incorporate the risk attitudes of clearing firms into the framework to investigate the efficacy of these instruments under several risk measures, including value-at-risk measures, expected-shortfall measures and spectral risk measures. An empirical study on the VIX futures (or VX) data shows that the effectiveness of these market instruments rests not only on clearing firms' risk attitudes, but also on the tail fatness of the futures price distribution. Moreover, the shift in the risk attitudes of clearing firms may cause interactions among these instruments, which casts new light on the economic rationale of price limits.     

Risk aversion and price limits in futures markets

Assuming that a representative trader is risk-neutral, Brennan [1986. Journal of Financial Economics 16, 213–233] shows that price limits, in conjunction with margins, may help reduce the default risk, lower the margin requirement, and decrease the total contract cost. We show that Brennan's result is true only when the trader's degree of risk aversion is low and the precision of additional information about the equilibrium futures price is also low. When the trader either is more risk-averse or can receive precise information, price limits become ineffective in either reducing the default probability, cutting down the margin requirement, or lowering the contract cost.     

Pricing futures on geometric indexes: A discrete time approach

Several futures contracts are written against an underlying asset that is a geometric, rather than arithmetic, index. These contracts include: the US Dollar Index futures, the CRB-17 futures, and the Value Line geometric index futures. Due to the geometric averaging, the standard cost-of-carry futures pricing formula is improper for pricing these futures contracts. We assume that asset prices are lognormally distributed, and capital markets are complete. Using the concepts of equivalent martingale measure and the risk-neutral valuation relationships in conjunction with discrete time methodology, we derive closed-form pricing formulas for these contracts. Our pricing formulas are consistent with the ones obtained via a continuous time paradigm.

New generations of futures methods

This paper presents and further explores the issues discussed during the “New generations of futures methods” session at the WFSF 19th World Conference, Budapest, Hungary. The generational interplay has many different facets and can be looked at from many various perspectives. This paper looks at a broader role of young people as agents of cultural change in societies, their relation to futures studies and the implications of their fresh ways of thinking for futures methods. Also, the past evolution of futures methods and the challenges facing the present and future generation of futurists in regard to methodological as well as general development are reviewed. In an effort to draw together these issues and provide practical ways forward for futurists and their field four integrating themes are addressed:

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Allowing for differences, how do we develop solidarity between generations?

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What does the near-future outlook tell us that might help to achieve this?

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What personal, organisational and social capacities are needed?

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What methods are available for building social foresight?

     

Price limits in futures markets: effects on the price discovery process and volatility

Price limits are actively employed by many futures exchanges as a regulatory mechanism directed at reducing volatility and improving price discovery process. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether price limits achieve these goals without affecting market liquidity for a number of agricultural futures contracts. We employ models of changing volatility in order to show that price limits do not appear to significantly reduce market volatility. In addition, we find evidence confirming the hypothesis that price limits delay price discovery instead of facilitating it. Our results also suggest that the impact of price limits on volatility and price reversals, found in previous studies, are mainly due to the properties inherent to the futures returns, such as volatility clustering. Finally, although trading decreases significantly due to the price limits, traders do not seem to switch from the contracts affected by price limits to other maturities in order to minimize the impact of circuit breakers.     

The dynamics in the spot,futures, and call options with basis asymmetries: an intraday analysis in a generalized multivariate GARCH-M MSKST framework

The main purpose of the study is to explore the dynamic relationship among the TAIEX spot, futures, and options markets by proposing an innovative multivariable GARCH-M MSKST (Multivariate Skewed-Student distribution) model. In addition to the considerable feedback effects of these three markets in terms of return transmissions, a significant bidirectional relationship is also found in volatility transmissions between futures and spot markets, and unidirectional spillover occurs from futures to options markets. Specifically, futures are found to exert the most influence on spot and options, and play an important role in disclosing information and pricing discovery to the other two markets. Comparing the magnitude of the effect the positive and negative basis has on spot prices, it is evident that positive basis has a greater impact on the spot market than negative basis does. Of interest, our study shows that positive basis has even more effect than negative basis does on the conditional variance of return on spot and futures.

Race to the center: competition for the Nikkei 225 futures trade

This paper examines the impact of changes in margin requirements on returns, transaction volume, and price volatility of the Nikkei 225 futures traded on the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE) and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). An increase in margin requirement on one exchange reduces its trading volume and shifts trade to the competing exchange. Both conditional price volatility and returns are not systematically affected by changes in margin requirements. The loss of OSE's market share of the Nikkei futures trade from 1990 to 1993 is partly due to the increased transactions costs (relative to SIMEX), including the margin requirement.     

Bid-ask bounce and speads in the foreign exchange futures market

This paper examines the intraday bid-ask bounce in Deutschemark and Japanese yen futures prices. The intraday Markovian bid-ask bounce process, which leads to a desirable equilibrium condition of reaching a bid or an ask transaction type with equal chances, is identified. A second-order Markov chain transition matrix model is used to derive a generalized estimator of bid-ask spreads in the foreign exchange futures market. It incorporates the conditional probabilities of a subsequent transaction being the same type as the current transaction's () and that of the next transaction being the same as the current type but different from the previous type (). The specification is {-Cov(P _t ,P _t+1 )/[(1–)(–)]}^1/2. The empirical results show that the average implied bid-ask spread is about $10, which is less than one tick's value of $12.50. It is also found that spreads are higher at the beginning and end of the trading day than the rest of the day, reflecting the uncertainty due to information flows and overnight inventory carrying costs, respectively.     

Heart of the dragon: Metaphor use in futures thinking in Taiwan

This article explores metaphors in the teaching of futures studies in Taiwan. Metaphors are divided into those that describe current reality and those that describe the future. For instance, the metaphor of the gold fish is used by students to illustrate the short attention span of the people, which attributed to recurring societal crises. A transformative metaphor example is for the library—from a fort that passively awaits worships to fire that actively passes knowledge to people. The article concludes with the benefits of using metaphors in futures thinking.     

Trading House Price Risk with Existing Futures Contracts

This paper examines the use of futures contracts to hedge residential real estate price risk. We examine whether existing futures contacts can effectively be used to offset volatility in national house prices. Little evidence of any simple systematic relation between national prices and futures prices is found. Since house prices are not easily replicated with a portfolio of existing futures contracts, a further implication is that the Chicago Mercantile’s introduction of a financial asset whose value reflects house prices will help complete the market. Nevertheless, the success of the CME’s new derivative contracts may be limited in light of state and regional house price correlations.

Price Limits and Margin Requirements in Futures Markets

This paper investigates the hypothesis that futures exchanges could use daily price limits as a substitute for higher margin requirements. The empirical results show that the size of margin is negatively correlated with the presence of price limits. Evidence points to the portfolio adjustment costs theory as an explanation of the benefits from price limits. The empirical results cast doubt on the notion that price limits should be abolished. The results also confirm that exchanges have set margin requirements according to economic theories.     

Prospect theory and the effectiveness of price limits

Assuming that traders are risk-neutral, Brennan (1986) shows that price limits are effective in improving the efficiency of futures contracts with limited accessibility to information because they obscure the exact loss when they are triggered. However, Brennan's (1986) model fails to explain why price limits also exist in contracts with abundant information like those of financial futures. We show that when traders are loss-averse, the effectiveness of price limits is strengthened even in the presence of precise information. Thus, our analysis provides a theoretical foundation explaining why price limits can be useful when market participants are not fully rational.     

Index Futures and Predictability of the Underlying Stocks’ Returns: The Case of the Nikkei 225

Theories predict that launching index futures could affect the price informativeness for the underlying stocks. We test this hypothesis by taking advantage of the introduction of the Nikkei 225 futures contracts in Singapore on September 3, 1986. Employing two alternative statistical methods applied to both daily and weekly data, we find that, following the listing of the index futures, returns become significantly more random and less predictable for the underlying stocks, even after controlling for concurrent marketwide shifts. These findings suggest improved price informativeness for the underlying stocks, which is further corroborated by their higher trading volume following the event.

Investors’ preference towards risk: evidence from the Taiwan stock and stock index futures markets

We apply the stochastic dominance (SD) tests proposed by Linton et al. (2005) and Davidson and Duclos (2000) for risk averters and risk seekers to examine investors’ preferences with respect to the Taiwan stock index and its corresponding index futures. We find that there is no first‐order SD relationship between Taiwan spot and futures. However, for second‐ and third‐order SD, we find that spot dominates futures for risk averters whereas futures dominates spot for risk seekers. The implication is that to maximize their expected utilities, risk averters prefer to buy stocks, whereas risk seekers prefer long index futures.     

Financialization and speculators risk premia in commodity futures markets

J.M. Keynes coined the term normal backwardation, a situation where a futures price for a particular expiry month is less than the expected spot price for that month. He argued hedgers pay speculators a risk premium, giving rise to normal backwardation. We study the behavior of commodity futures before and since financialization of the markets, which started about 20 years ago. We find the poor returns to managed futures in recent years are likely due to the impact of financialization and the associated outside money suppressing the futures risk premium.     

Are price limits on futures markets that cool? Evidence from the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange

This article investigates the impact of price limits on theBrazilian futures markets using high frequency data. The aimis to identify whether there is an ex ante cool-off or magneteffect. For that purpose, we examine a tick-by-tick data setthat includes all contracts on the São Paulo stock indexfutures traded on the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange(BM&F) from January 1997 to December 1999. The results indicatethat, altogether, there is a dominant cool-off effect in playand that the latter is much stronger for the floor rather thanceiling price. This explains why we observe more hits to theceiling rather than to the floor in our sample despite the factit covers one of the most turbulent periods for emerging markets.We then build a trading strategy that accounts for the cool-offeffect in the conditional mean so as to demonstrate that thelatter has not only statistical but also economic significance.The Sharpe ratio is indeed way superior to the buy-and-holdbenchmarks we consider.