The Quality Option and Timing Option in Futures Contracts

Often futures contracts contain quality options whereby the short position has the choice of delivering one of an acceptable set of assets. We explore the implications of the quality option on the futures price. We develop a method for pricing the quality option for the general case of n deliverable assets and provide numerical illustrations of its significance. Even when the asset prices are very highly correlated, this option can have nontrivial value, especially when there is a large number of deliverable assets. We analyze the impact of the timing option and its interaction with the quality option. A procedure is developed for valuing the timing option in the presence of the quality option, and some numerical estimates are obtained.     

国债期货来了

在股指期货正式推出两年后,2012年4月,国债期货仿真合约开始试运行。参与仿真测试的公司有10家左右,包括期货公司、券商和银行,试点内容主要是中金所推出的国债期货仿真合约的所有环节。银河期货有限公司(以下简称"银河期货")正是试点公司之一。"现在市场上绝大多数都是商品期货。国债期货的推出对于整个期货品种,特别是金融期货品种的丰富,意义非常大。股指期货、国债期货,再加上未来可能推出的外汇期货,有了这三样,我国的金融期货市场体系就基本完备了。"银河期货副总经理周雷告诉记者。     

Valuation and Optimal Exercise of the Wild Card Option in the Treasury Bond Futures Market

The Chicago Board of Trade Treasury Bond Futures Contract allows the short position several delivery options as to when and with which bond the contract will be settled. The timing option allows the short position to choose any business day in the delivery month to make delivery. In addition, the contract settlement price is locked in at 2:00 p .m . when the futures market closes, despite the facts that the short position need not declare an intent to settle the contract until 8:00 p .m . and that trading in Treasury bonds can occur all day in dealer markets. If bond prices change significantly between 2:00 and 8:00 p .m ., the short has the option of settling the contract at a favorable 2:00 p .m . price. This phenomenon, which recurs on every trading day of the delivery month, creates a sequence of 6-hour put options for the short position which has been dubbed the “wild card option.” This paper presents a valuation model for the wild card option and computes estimates of the value of that option, as well as rules for its optimal exercise.     

The End of the Month Option and Other Embedded Options in Futures Contracts

Asia-Pacific Financial Markets - Futures contracts often contain several different kinds of embedded options related to the delivery of the underlying. The end of the month option allows the holder...     

基于高频数据的我国国债期货市场套利研究

在利率市场化改革的大背景下,国债期货成为市场参与者管理利率风险的重要工具.在容量不断扩大的国债期货市场中,套利交易发挥着越来越重要的作用,促进了市场的交易流动性和价格发现功能.本文选取2015年3月20日至2018年2月28日我国5年期国债期货和10年期国债期货的1分钟收盘价,构建基于GARCH模型的高频套利方案,对样本内数据和样本外数据分别获得5.59％和4.56％的绝对收益.     

Do Daily Price Limits Act as Magnets? The Case of Treasury Bond Futures

This article examines price behavior in the U.S. Treasury bond futures market in the mornings after large overnight price moves, using data from 1980 to 1987. The article tests whether price behavior is affected by proximity to a price limit, and whether the effect is a magnet effect or a calming effect. In that period, the price tends to reverse direction after the morning open, and the reversal appears to reflect a calming effect of the price being close to the limit. An alternative hypothesis—that morning price behavior reflects the overnight price change rather than proximity to the price limit per se—is also tested, and does not perform as well in explaining price behavior.     

国债期货跨期价差分析与统计套利研究

在我国国债期货市场活跃度与交易量稳步提升的现实基础上,本文探究国债期货跨期统计套利策略的有效性以及如何在投资实践中发挥最大效用。首先基于协整理论构建套利策略,回测结果显示在头寸较少时能够取得有效的正向收益。针对收益进行阶段性分析后可知,跨期价差的平稳震荡有助于实现收益最大化,而价差的趋势运行则会降低胜率。为提供策略择时思路,针对跨期价差进行理论定价分析,并从理论与实际交易结构两大层面探究影响因素,最后基于历史视角结合价差的显著趋势行情验证上述影响因素在实际判别中的可靠性。     

The TIPS‐Treasury Bond Puzzle

We show that the price of a Treasury bond and an inflation‐swapped Treasury Inflation‐Protected Securities (TIPS) issue exactly replicating the cash flows of the Treasury bond can differ by more than $20 per $100 notional. Treasury bonds are almost always overvalued relative to TIPS. Total TIPS‐Treasury mispricing has exceeded $56 billion, representing nearly 8% of the total amount of TIPS outstanding. We find direct evidence that the mispricing narrows as additional capital flows into the markets. This provides strong support for the slow‐moving‐capital explanation of arbitrage persistence.     

Quality options and hedging in Japanese Government Bond Futures markets

Quality options for Japanese Government Bond Futures contracts are analysed using a discrete trinomial tree approach based upon a two-factor Heath, Jarrow, and Morton (1990b) model. The impacts of the quality option on hedging effectiveness are investigated. In general, the pure quality option is found to be relatively small and, while the quality option does not have a dramatic impact upon hedging, accounting for the quality option can improve the performance of optimal hedging strategies.     

The Valuation of Options on Futures Contracts

Rational restrictions are derived for the values of American options on futures contracts. For these options, the optimal policy, in general, involves premature exercise. A model is developed for valuing options on futures contracts in a constant interest rate setting. Despite the fact that premature exercise may be optimal, the value of this American feature appears to be small and a European formula due to Black serves as a useful approximation. Finally, a model is developed to value these options in a world with stochastic interest rates. It is shown that the pricing errors caused by ignoring the location of the interest rate (relative to its long-run mean) range from ?5% to 7%, when the current rate is ±200 basis points from its long-run value. The role of interest rate expectations is, therefore, crucial to the valuation. Optimal exercise policies are found from numerical methods for both models.     

电力期货和电力期货合约的设计

引言 在传统的电力工业管理体制下,国家对电价实行严格管制,政府统一管理电价,对电价实行严格审计.在这样的硬性控制下,电价的波动很小,几乎没有独立发、输、配电企业,因此不会面临由于电价波动造成的风险.但随着电力体制向市场化方向改革的进行,电力市场中批发电价和零售电价都将逐步放开.电价通过市场竞价方式来确定,将不可避免地导致市场价格的波动.由于电力商品的特殊性,其需求弹性很小,这样电价很容易受电力供求关系的影响,从而使电价产生剧烈波动,例如一日内负荷处于高峰时的实时电价与负荷处于低谷时的实时电价可以相差几倍,有时甚至低谷电价可以为零或负值,而不同天、不同月份的电价则相差更大.这样,将使电力市场的参与者面临巨大的价格风险.     

Jackknifing Bond Option Prices

Prices of interest rate derivative securities depend cruciallyon the mean reversion parameters of the underlying diffusions.These parameters are subject to estimation bias when standardmethods are used. The estimation bias can be substantial evenin very large samples and much more serious than the discretizationbias, and it translates into a bias in pricing bond optionsand other derivative securities that is important in practicalwork. This article proposes a very general and computationallyinexpensive method of bias reduction that is based on Quenouille's(1956; Biometrika, 43, 353–360) jackknife. We show howthe method can be applied directly to the options price itselfas well as the coefficients in the models. We investigate itsperformance in a Monte Carlo study. Empirical applications toU.S. dollar swap rates highlight the differences between bondand option prices implied by the jackknife procedure and thoseimplied by the standard approach. These differences are largeand suggest that bias reduction in pricing options is importantin practical applications.     

美国的电力期货与电力期权

电力期货和电力期权的价格保险功能为美国电力工业提供了较好的风险管理工具，降低了因现货市场电价高度波动带来的经营风险。     

The Relation Between Treasury Yields and Corporate Bond Yield Spreads

Because the option to call a corporate bond should rise in value when bond yields fall, the relation between noncallable Treasury yields and spreads of corporate bond yields over Treasury yields should depend on the callability of the corporate bond. I confirm this hypothesis for investment-grade corporate bonds. Although yield spreads on both callable and noncallable corporate bonds fall when Treasury yields rise, this relation is much stronger for callable bonds. This result has important implications for interpreting the behavior of yields on commonly used corporate bond indexes, which are composed primarily of callable bonds.