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the futures contract
Pricing
The situation where the price of a commodity for future delivery is higher than the spot price, or where a far future delivery price is higher than a nearer future delivery, is known as contango. The reverse, where the price of a commodity for future delivery is lower than the spot price, or where a far future delivery price is lower than a nearer future delivery, is known as backwardation.
When the deliverable asset exists in plentiful supply, or may be freely created, then the price of a future is determined via arbitrage arguments. The forward price represents the expected future value of the underlying discounted at the risk free rate—as any deviation from the theoretical price will afford investors a riskless profit opportunity and should be arbitraged away; see rational pricing of futures.
Thus, for a simple, non-dividend paying asset, the value of the future/forward, F(t), will be found by compounding the present value S(t) at time t to maturity T by the rate of risk-free return r.
or, with continuous compounding
This relationship may be modified for storage costs, dividends, dividend yields, and convenience yields.
In a perfect market the relationship between futures and spot prices depends only on the above variables; in practice there are various market imperfections (transaction costs, differential borrowing and lending rates, restrictions on short selling) that prevent complete arbitrage. Thus, the futures price in fact varies within arbitrage boundaries around the theoretical price.
The above relationship, therefore, is typical for stock index futures, treasury bond futures, and futures on physical commodities when they are in supply (e.g. on corn after the harvest). However, when the deliverable commodity is not in plentiful supply or when it does not yet exist, for example on wheat before the harvest or on Eurodollar Futures or Federal funds rate futures (in which the supposed underlying instrument is to be created upon the delivery date), the futures price cannot be fixed by arbitrage. In this scenario there is only one force setting the price, which is simple supply and demand for the future asset, as expressed by supply and demand for the futures contract.
In a deep and liquid market, this supply and demand would be expected to balance out at a price which represents an unbiased expectation of the future price of the actual asset and so be given by the simple relationship
.
In fact, this relationship will hold in a no-arbitrage setting when we take expectations with respect to the risk-neutral probability. In other words: a futures price is martingale with respect to the risk-neutral probability.
With this pricing rule, a speculator is expected to break even when the futures market fairly prices the deliverable commodity.
In a shallow and illiquid market, or in a market in which large quantities of the deliverable asset have been deliberately withheld from market participants (an illegal action known as cornering the market), the market clearing price for the future may still represent the balance between supply and demand but the relationship between this price and the expected future price of the asset can break down.
[edit] Futures contracts and exchanges
Contracts
There are many different kinds of futures contracts, reflecting the many different kinds of "tradable" assets about which the contract may be based such as commodities, securities (such as single-stock futures), currencies or intangibles such as interest rates and indexes. For information on futures markets in specific underlying commodity markets, follow the links. For a list of tradable commodities futures contracts, see List of traded commodities. See also the futures exchange article.
Foreign exchange market
Money market
Bond market
Equity index market
Soft Commodities market
Trading on commodities began in Japan in the 18th century with the trading of rice and silk, and similarly in Holland with tulip bulbs. Trading in the US began in the mid 19th century, when central grain markets were established and a marketplace was created for farmers to bring their commodities and sell them either for immediate delivery (also called spot or cash market) or for forward delivery. These forward contracts were private contracts between buyers and sellers and became the forerunner to today's exchange-traded futures contracts. Although contract trading began with traditional commodities such as grains, meat and livestock, exchange trading has expanded to include metals, energy, currency and currency indexes, equities and equity indexes, government interest rates and private interest rates.
Exchanges
Contracts on financial instruments was introduced in the 1970s by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and these instruments became hugely successful and quickly overtook commodities futures in terms of trading volume and global accessibility to the markets. This innovation led to the introduction of many new futures exchanges worldwide, such as the London International Financial Futures Exchange in 1982 (now Euronext.liffe), Deutsche Terminbörse (now Eurex) and the Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM). Today, there are more than 75 futures and futures options exchanges worldwide trading to include:
CME Group (formerly CBOT and CME) -- Currencies, Various Interest Rate derivatives (including US Bonds); Agricultural (Corn, Soybeans, Soy Products, Wheat, Pork, Cattle, Butter, Milk); Index (Dow Jones Industrial Average); Metals (Gold, Silver), Index (NASDAQ, S&P, etc)
ICE Futures - the International Petroleum Exchange trades energy including crude oil, heating oil, natural gas and unleaded gas and merged with IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) to form ICE Futures.
NYSE Euronext - which absorbed Euronext into which London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange or LIFFE (pronounced 'LIFE-ee') was merged. (LIFFE had taken over London Commodities Exchange ("LCE") in 1996)- softs: grains and meats. Inactive market in Baltic Exchange shipping. Index futures include EURIBOR, FTSE 100, CAC 40, AEX index.
South African Futures Exchange - SAFEX
Sydney Futures Exchange
Tokyo Stock Exchange TSE (JGB Futures, TOPIX Futures)
Tokyo Commodity Exchange TOCOM
Tokyo Financial Exchange - TFX - (Euroyen Futures, OverNight CallRate Futures, SpotNext RepoRate Futures)
Osaka Securities Exchange OSE (Nikkei Futures, RNP Futures)
London Metal Exchange - metals: copper, aluminium, lead, zinc, nickel, tin and steel
New York Board of Trade - softs: cocoa, coffee, cotton, orange juice, sugar
New York Mercantile Exchange - energy and metals: crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, coal, propane, gold, silver, platinum, copper, aluminum and palladium
Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Korea Exchange - KRX
Singapore Exchange - SGX - into which merged Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX)
[edit] Who trades futures?
Futures traders are traditionally placed in one of two groups: hedgers, who have an interest in the underlying asset (which could include an intangible such as an index or interest rate) and are seeking to hedge out the risk of price changes; and speculators, who seek to make a profit by predicting market moves and opening a derivative (finance) contract related to the asset "on paper", while they have no practical use or intend to actually take or make delivery of the underlying asset. In other words, the investor is seeking exposure to the asset in a long future or the opposite effect via a short future contract.
Hedgers typically include producers and consumers of a commodity or the owner of an asset or assets subject to certain influences such as an interest rate.
For example, in traditional commodity markets, farmers often sell futures contracts for the crops and livestock they produce to guarantee a certain price, making it easier for them to plan. Similarly, livestock producers often purchase futures to cover their feed costs, so that they can plan on a fixed cost for feed. In modern (financial) markets, "producers" of interest rate swaps or equity derivative products will use financial futures or equity index futures to reduce or remove the risk on the swap.
An example that has both hedge and speculative notions involves a mutual fund or separately managed account whose investment objective is to track the performance of a stock index such as the S&P 500 stock index. The Portfolio manager often "equitizes" cash inflows in an easy and cost effective manor by investing in (opening long) S&P 500 stock index futures. This gains the portfolio exposure to the index which is consistent with the fund or account investment objective without having to buy an appropriate proportion of each of the individual 500 stocks just yet. This also preserves balanced diversification, maintains a higher degree of the percent of assets invested in the market and helps reduce tracking error in the performance of the fund/account. When it is economically feasible (an efficient amount of shares of every individual position within the fund or account can be purchased), the portfolio manager can close the contract and make purchases of each individual stock.
The social utility of futures markets is considered to be mainly in the transfer of risk, and increase liquidity between traders with different risk and time preferences, from a hedger to a speculator, for example.
[edit] Options on futures
In many cases, options are traded on futures, sometimes called simply "futures options". A put is the option to sell a futures contract, and a call is the option to buy a futures contract. For both, the option strike price is the specified futures price at which the future is traded if the option is exercised. See the Black-Scholes model, which is the most popular method for pricing these option contracts.
[edit] Futures contract regulations
All futures transactions in the United States are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), an independent agency of the United States government. The Commission has the right to hand out fines and other punishments for an individual or company who breaks any rules. Although by law the commission regulates all transactions, each exchange can have its own rule, and under contract can fine companies for different things or extend the fine that the CFTC hands out.
The CFTC publishes weekly reports containing details of the open interest of market participants for each market-segment that has more than 20 participants. These reports are released every Friday (including data from the previous Tuesday) and contain data on open interest split by reportable and non-reportable open interest as well as commercial and non-commercial open interest. This type of report is referred to as the 'Commitments of Traders Report', COT-Report or simply COTR.
[edit] Formal definition of futures contract
Following Björk[5] we give a formal definition of a futures contract. We describe a futures contract with delivery of 100 Google stocks at the time T:
There exists in the market a quoted price F(t,T), which is known as the futures price at time t for delivery of 100 Google Stocks at time T.
At time T, the holder pays F(t,T) and is entitled to receive 100 Google stocks.
During any time interval (s,t], the holder receives the amount F(t,T) − F(s,T).
The spot price of obtaining the futures contract is equal to zero, for all time t such that t < T.
[edit] See also
List of finance topics
Agriculture
Freight derivatives
List of traded commodities
Seasonal spread trading
Prediction market
1256 Contract
Onion Futures Act
Grain Futures Act
Commodity Exchange Act
[edit] Notes
1.^ Sullivan, Arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003), Economics: Principles in action, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall, pp. 288, ISBN 0-13-063085-3,
Pearson School: Home
2.^ Hull, John C. (2005), Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (excerpt by Fan Zhang) (6th ed.), Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0131499084,
Economics Reference: Futures ?(Fan Zhang)?
3.^ Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett, vol. 2, The Great Books of the Western World, book 1, chap. 11, p. 453.
4.^ Henriques, D Mysterious discrepancies in grain prices baffle experts, International Herald Tribune, March 23, 2008. Accessed April 12, 2008
5.^ Björk: Arbitrage theory in continuous time, Cambridge university press, 2004
[edit] References
The Institute for Financial Markets (2003). Futures & Options. Washington, DC: The IFM. p. 237.
Redhead, Keith (1997). Financial Derivatives: An Introduction to Futures, Forwards, Options and Swaps. London: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 013241399X.
Lioui, Abraham; Poncet, Patrice (2005). Dynamic Asset Allocation with Forwards and Futures. New York: Springer. ISBN 0387241078.
Valdez, Steven (2000). An Introduction To Global Financial Markets (3rd ed.). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0333764471.
Arditti, Fred D. (1996). Derivatives: A Comprehensive Resource for Options, Futures, Interest Rate Swaps, and Mortgage Securities. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 0875845606.
[edit] U.S. Futures exchanges and regulators
Chicago Board of Trade, now part of CME Group
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, now part of CME Group
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
National Futures Association
Kansas City Board of Trade
New York Board of Trade now ICE
New York Mercantile Exchange, now part of CME Group
Minneapolis Grain Exchange
[edit] External links
Institute for Financial Market, nonprofit educational foundation on futures & options
Curving Futures : Plotting current and historic market data
Futures Educational Forum
Man Financial : A Guide to Margins & Order Entry
Hot Commodities, Stuffed Markets, and Empty Bellies: What's behind higher food prices? from Dollars & Sense, July/August 2008
BBC Oil Futures Investigation
Understanding Commodity Seasonality Seasonal charts and explanations of why prices tend to move from a supply/demand perspective
Seasonal Futures Charts Commodity Futures Charts, Commodity Futures Quotes, Seasonal Charts, Spread Charts
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Categories: Derivatives
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