Supply Contracts with Financial Hedging

We study the performance of a stylized supply chain where two firms, a retailer and a producer, compete in a Stackelberg game. The retailer purchases a single product from the producer and afterwards sells it in the retail market at a stochastic clearance price. The retailer, however, is budget-constrained and is therefore limited in the number of units that he may purchase from the producer. We also assume that the retailer's profit depends in part on the realized path or terminal value of some observable stochastic process. We interpret this process as a financial process such as a foreign exchange rate or interest rate. More generally the process may be interpreted as any relevant economic index. We consider a variation (the flexible contract) of the traditional wholesale price contract that is offered by the producer to the retailer. Under this flexible contract, at t = 0 the producer offers a menu of wholesale prices to the retailer, one for each realization of the financial process up to a future time . The retailer then commits to purchasing at time a variable number of units, with the specific quantity depending on the realization of the process up to time. Because of the retailer's budget constraint, the supply chain might be more profitable if the retailer was able to shift some of the budget from states where the constraint is not binding to states where it is binding. We therefore consider a variation of the flexible contract where we assume that the retailer is able to trade dynamically between 0 and in the financial market. We refer to this variation as the flexible contract with hedging. We compare the decentralized competitive solution for the two contracts with the solutions obtained by a central planner. We also compare the supply chain's performance across the two contracts. We find, for example, that the producer always prefers the flexible contract with hedging to the flexible contract without hedging. Depending on model parameters, however, the retailer may or may not prefer the flexible contract with hedging. Finally, we study the problem of choosing the optimal timing, of the contract, and formulate this as an optimal stopping problem.Operations Management Working Papers Serie

The Need for Transparency in Commodity and Commodity Derivatives Markets. ECMI Research Report No. 3, 15 December 2008

This paper argues that transparency-boosting measures specifically tailored to commodity and commodity derivatives markets are much needed. In particular, encouraging the creation of a clearing infrastructure for OTC commodity and commodity derivatives markets would be desirable. Moreover, EU regulators should consider setting up a new, more effective market abuse regime aimed at preventing manipulation in both the physical and financial commodities markets. Finally, in cooperation with the G20, EU authorities should consider the creation of an International Commodity Agency to increase transparency and restore confidence in international physical markets for commodities. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 briefly discusses the fundamentals of commodity spot and futures markets. Section 3 presents both physical commodity markets and commodity derivative markets in their usual breakdown categories: agriculture, metals and energy. Section 4 discusses the regulations in the EU and the US concerning commodity derivatives. Section 5 advances certain policy proposals and the last section draws the conclusions

Generation Adequacy and Investment Incentives in Britain: from the Pool to NETA

Three years after the controversial change of the British market design from compulsory Pool with capacity payments to decentralised energy-only New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) market framework, we compare the two designs in terms of investment incentives. We review the biases of the Pool capacity payments design, the drought of investment following the introduction of NETA, and the reaction of the market during the first “stress-test” of NETA during the winter 2003. In an energy-only market such as NETA, it is essential that price signals are right and the system operator has a crucial role in contracting ahead for reserve. We recommend that NETA adopt a single marginal imbalance price as dual imbalance pricing distorts price signals in times of scarcity. The lack of long-term contracting that causes hedging and financing difficulties for power projects can becompensated by vertical and horizontal reintegration at a cost of increased market power

The Financial Industry's Challenge of Developing Commodity Derivatives

With a constant new stream of financial services coming to the market, each often more exotic and complicated than the last, the financial services industry, which includes commodity derivatives exchanges, brokerage houses and banks providing price risk reduction services (the so-called hedging services), is one of the fastest growing industries. In order to assure survival, these companies show a rapid product innovation. However, for commodity derivatives the risk of failure is considerable. This paper presents a new and integrative approach towards commodity derivatives management, which makes it easier to gain insight into the viability of new commodity derivatives before introduction, to assess and improve the viability of existing commodity derivatives

Risk management in electricity markets: hedging and market incompleteness

The high volatility of electricity markets gives producers and retailers an incentive to hedge their exposure to electricity prices by buying and selling derivatives. This paper studies how welfare and investment incentives are affected when markets for derivatives are introduced, and to what extent this depends on market completeness. We develop an equilibrium model of the electricity market with risk-averse firms and a set of traded financial products, more specifically: forwards and an increasing number of options. Using this model, we first show that aggregate welfare in the market increases with the number of derivatives offered. If firms are concerned with large negative shocks to their profitability due to liquidity constraints, option markets are particularly attractive from a welfare point of view. Secondly, we demonstrate that increasing the number of derivatives improves investment decisions of small firms (especially when firms are risk-averse), because the additional financial markets signal to firms how they can reduce the overall sector risk. Also the information content of prices increases: the quality of investment decisions based on risk-free probabilities, inferred from market prices, improves as markets become more complete Finally, we show that government intervention may be needed, because private investors may not have the right incentives to create the optimal number of markets.

Risk management in electricity markets: hedging and market incompleteness.

The high volatility of electricity markets gives producers and retailers an incentive to hedge their exposure to electricity prices by buying and selling derivatives. This paper studies how welfare and investment incentives are affected when markets for derivatives are introduced, and to what extent this depends on market completeness. We develop an equilibrium model of the electricity market with riskaverse firms and a set of traded financial products, more specifically: forwards and an increasing number of options. Using this model, we first show that aggregate welfare in the market increases with the number of derivatives offered. If firms are concerned with large negative shocks to their profitability due to liquidity constraints, option markets are particularly attractive from a welfare point of view. Secondly, we demonstrate that increasing the number of derivatives improves investment decisions of small firms (especially when firms are risk-averse), because the additional financial markets signal to firms how they can reduce the overall sector risk. Also the information content of prices increases: the quality of investment decisions based on risk-free probabilities, inferred from market prices, improves as markets become more complete Finally, we show that government intervention may be needed, because private investors may not have the right incentives to create the optimal number of markets.

Willingness to Pay for Weather Derivatives by Australian Wheat Farmers

A theoretical optimal hedging model is developed to determine potential demand from Australian farmers for a hedging tool to remove the economic consequences of climate related variability in wheat yield. In the past, financial instruments have been developed to hedge price risk on capital markets; however, in more recent times new financial instruments, weather derivatives, have been developing that hedge the volumetric risk associated with unfavourable weather. Weather derivatives have the ability to effectively hedge weather related volume risk for the agricultural, mining, energy and manufacturing industries, while also providing a risk management tool for construction firms and special events organisers, although there are still many hurdles to implementing agricultural weather derivative contracts in Australia. The optimal hedging ratio is found to be quite sensitive to the degree of risk aversion of the farmer and to the cost of obtaining the contracts.weather derivatives, risk, hedging, wheat, Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

Regulating excessive speculation: commodity derivatives and the global food crisis

Evidence suggests that commodity derivatives speculation contributed to extraordinary patterns of grain price volatility that led to a global food crisis in 2007–11. People in countries throughout the world are increasingly dependent on international commodity markets for access to food. Almost everywhere, now, the value of food is determined by a single condensed symbol of its worth—its price. Persuaded of the need to ensure that this measure of value is not put at risk of distortion in the pursuit of financial profit, governments in the US and in the EU are now implementing new regulations designed to curb ‘excessive’ levels of speculation in derivative markets. Carrying out an analysis of these regulatory measures, the article demonstrates that both sets of reforms suffer from a critical limitation: They are predicated on an inaccurate understanding of how activity in commodity derivative markets can impact on underlying food prices. If the new regulations for commodity derivative markets are not up to the task, as this article argues that they are not, a more fundamental revision of global economic structures may be required if the basic needs of human beings are not to be subsumed to the interests of financial capital in the years to come

On the lease rate, convenience yield and speculative effects in the gold futures market

By examining data on the gold forward offered rate (GOFO) and lease rates over the period 1996- 2009, we conclude that the convenience yield of gold is better approximated by the lease rate than the interest-adjusted spread of Fama & French (1983). Using the latter quantity, we study the relationship between gold leasing and the level of COMEX discretionary inventory and exhibit that lease rates are negatively related to inventories. We also show that Futures prices have increasingly exceeded forward prices over the period, and this effect increases with the speculative pressure and the maturity of the contracts