The Bachelier model for pricing options on futures spreads (OFS) assumes changes in the underlying .futures prices and spread follow unrestricted arithmetic Brownian motion (UABM). The assumption of UABM allows for a convenient analytic solution for the price of an OFS. The same is not possible...

Practitioners Abstract: The paper motivates and proposes a closed form option pricing model for markets such as grains or livestock where the price level can be expected to revert to expected production costs. The model suggests that traditional option pricing models will overprice long term...

Standard models of hedging behavior assume that either hedgers wish to minimize net price variation or they wish to balance variation versus profits. These models treat variation as risk and fail to distinguish between variation that is random and variation that is not random over time. Newer...

Returns to managed futures funds and Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) have decreased dramatically during the last several years. Since these funds overwhelmingly use technical analysis, this research examines futures prices to determine if there is evidence of a structural change in futures...

The demand for hedging against price uncertainty in the presence of crop yield and revenue insurance contracts is examined for French wheat farms. The rationale for the use of options in addition to futures is first highlighted through the characterization of the first-best hedging strategy in...

The inaccuracy of the Black-Scholes formula arises from two aspects: the formula is for European options while most real option contracts are American; the formula is based on the assumption that underlying asset prices follow a lognormal distribution while in the real world asset prices cannot...

This study uses the newly available data from the CFTC to investigate the market impact of futures trading by large hedge funds and CTAs. Regression results show that there is a positive relationship between the trading volume of large hedge funds and CTAs and market volatility. However, a...

The number of meat recalls has increased markedly in recent years. Meat recalls have the potential to adversely affect short run demand for meat because of the associated decline in consumer confidence. This research examines the impact of beef and pork recalls on nearby daily live cattle and...

The optimal hedging portfolio is shown to include both futures and options under a variety of circumstances when the marginal cost of hedging is non-zero. Futures and options are treated as substitute goods, and properties of the resulting hedging demand system are explained. The overall optimal...