DURATION,IMMUNIZATION, AND HEDGING WITH INTEREST RATE FUTURES

The recent advent of the interest rate futures markets has greatly enriched the hedging opportunities of market participants faced with undesired interest rate risk. The variety of futures contracts presently spans a number of instruments with different risk, maturity, and coupon characteristics. This paper modifies the concept of duration and extends the duration hedging approach to cases where futures contracts are used as the hedging instrument. The derived hedge ratios take into account differences in coupon, maturity, and risk for three different regimes. Usage of these hedge ratios should lead to more efficient hedging of interest rate risk.     

TRADING TIME EFFECTS IN FINANCIAL AND COMMODITY FUTURES MARKETS

Through the examination of one commodity contract, soybeans, and one financial contract, U.S. Treasury bonds, the authors test to determine (1) whether mean rates of return during trading times differ from mean rates of return during nontrading times; (2) whether mean returns during trading times and nontrading times differ by day of the week; (3) whether trading time returns differ significantly from previous nontrading time returns; and (4) the extent to which trading and previous nontrading returns are correlated. In addition, the authors empirically examine a possible explanation for the results obtained.     

INFORMATION AND NOISE IN FINANCIAL MARKETS: EVIDENCE FROM THE E‐MINI INDEX FUTURES

I examine the informational contributions and effects on transitory volatility of trades initiated by different types of traders in three actively traded index futures markets. The results show that trades initiated by exchange member firms account for more than 60% of price discovery during the trading day. These institutional trades appear to be more informative than trades of individual exchange members or off‐exchange traders. I also find that off‐exchange traders introduce more noise into the prices than do exchange members. My findings provide new evidence on the role of different types of traders in the price formation process.     

FINANCIAL STRUCTURE AND FINANCIAL STRATEGY

Even if the value of the firm is unaffected by its capital structure, managers may have reasons to choose a particular structure. The prices of the firm's securities reflect the “market's” assessment of the value and riskiness of the firm. Should managers disagree with the market's assessment of the firm's risk or value, they will also disagree about the relative returns on the firm's securities. Concern about shareholder welfare may, therefore, lead them to prefer a specific capital structure. If managers believe the market has underestimated the firm's value, they will prefer debt financing; if the market has overestimated risk, they will prefer equity; and, if managers disagree about both risk and value, they may prefer to finance using both debt and equity.     

LIQUIDITY AND PRICE VARIABILITY IN FUTURES MARKETS

This paper tests the hypothesis that market liquidity affects the price variability of futures contracts. The analyses used take into account the maturity effect and various sources of nonstationarity. Empirical testing involved eleven commodities in various markets. The evidence strongly suggests that futures contracts in distant and thinly traded months exhibit different price variability than contracts in near to maturity and liquid traded months, and that the behavior is commodity dependent. These findings could help investors better evaluate risks and provide a better basis for hedging strategies. Also, monthly averages of open interest can be used interchangeably with volume to measure liquidity in determining which pattern applies to a given commodity.     

积极稳妥推出国债期货——访全国人大代表、中国金融期货交易所总经理朱玉辰

国债期货是我国第一个金融期货品种,17年前因“327国债”等风险事件影响被叫停。时隔17年后,重启国债期货的呼声在两会期间再起。此期货品种何时能再次上市？时机是否已成熟？将给市场带来怎样影响？能否保证“327国债”等风险事件不再发生……带着这些疑惑,本刊记者采访了全国人大代表、中国金融期货交易所总经理朱玉辰。     

VOLATILITY TRANSMISSION AND PATTERNS IN BUND FUTURES

We analyze intraday volatility behavior for the Bund futures contract that is traded simultaneously at two competing exchanges. We investigate the transmission of volatility between the exchanges. We find that the lead/lag relations are restricted to a few minutes and do not reveal a dominant leader. We then analyze patterns in intraday volatility. We find that volatility behaves similarly at both exchanges; i.e., it decreases from the opening until early afternoon and increases thereafter. The same pattern is detected in explanatory variables such as traded volume and time-between-trades.