The major finding is that liquidity costs in futures options market are two to three times higher than liquidity costs in the futures market. Liquidity cost is one potential factor to consider when choosing between hedging with a futures contract or with an option contract. While there is...

Futures prices when combined with a basis forecast provide a reliable way to forecast cash prices. The most popular method of forecasting basis is historical moving averages. Given the recent failure of longer moving averages proposed by previous studies, this research reassesses past...

Some extension economists and others often recommend profit margin hedging in choosing the timing of crop sales. This paper determines producer’s utility function and price processes where profit margin hedging is optimal. Profit margin hedging is shown to be an optimal strategy under a highly...

The purpose of this paper is to determine the importance of the strength and weakness of basis and futures prices as barometers for producers to use in deciding whether to store or not. Basis is the single most important market signal for wheat producers to use when deciding whether to store or...