Hedging Commodities

This book is an invaluable resource of hedging case studies and examples, explaining with clarity and coherence how various instruments - such as futures and options - are used in different market scenarios to contain, control and eliminate price risk exposure. Its core objective is to elucidate hedging transactions and provide a systematic, comprehensive view on hedge performance. When it comes to hedge strategies specifically, great effort has been employed to create new instruments and concepts that will prove to be superior to classic methods and interpretations. The concept of hedge patterns - introduced here - proves it is possible to tabulate a hedging strategy and interpret its use with diagrams, so each example is shown visually with the result of radical clarity. A compelling visual pattern is also attached to each case study to give you the ability to compare different solutions and apply a best-fit hedging strategy in real-world situations. A diverse range of hedging transactions showing the ultimate payoff profiles and performance metrics are included. These have been designed to achieve the ultimate goal - to convey the necessary skills to allow business and risk management teams to develop proper hedging mechanisms and apply them in practice.

Don’t Miss out on Today’s Hottest Trading Arena: Commodity Options! “The authors have written the definitive work on trading commodity options. Their in-depth knowledge of this subject is legendary among industry professionals and expert traders alike, and their ability to relay their knowledge through text, pictures, and the spoken word is unparalleled in our industry.” –Lan Turner, CEO, Gecko Software, Inc. “This book captures the realities of commodity option trading in a simple and easy- to-read presentation that will be beneficial for traders of all sizes and skill levels.” –Chris Jarvis, CFA, CMT, Caprock Risk Management, LLC “Even the most experienced investors often overlook the fact that options on futures are fundamentally different from options on stocks. This book fills that gap and sets the record straight with clear and concise descriptions that are easy to understand. Guaranteed to become a true source of value creation for anyone interested in trading commodity options.” –Jeff Augen, author, The Volatility Edge in Options Trading “Commodity Options arms readers with the strategies and tactics needed to take a more active approach to managing risk in today’s turbulent markets. The authors exhaustively break down every component of a commodity option to its lowest common denominator, making this book an essential piece of information for those looking to expand their trading tool box or further build on existing option strategies.” –John Netto, Chief Investment Strategist, NetBlack Capital and author, One Shot–One Kill Trading Investors worldwide are discovering the enormous opportunities available through commodity options trading. However, because commodities have differing underlying characteristics from equities, commodity ­options behave differently as well. In this book, two of the field’s most respected analysts present strategies built from the ground up for commodity options. Carley Garner and Paul Brittain begin with a quick primer on how commodity options work, how they evolved, and why conventional options strategies often fail in the commodity options markets. Next, using detailed examples based on their own extensive research, they show how to leverage the unique characteristics of commodity options in your own trades. You’ll walk through trades from “top to bottom,” master both long- and short-option approaches, and learn powerful strategies usually ignored in options books. For example, the authors introduce synthetic swing trading strategies that systematically reduce volatility from the market. This book’s easy-to-use trading strategies are strategically employed by the author’s clients every day: With Commodity Options, you can work to put the odds in your favor, too! • Why commodity options are different—and what it means to you Understand key differences in the underlying assets and the logistics of market execution • Systematically rewrite the odds in your favor Four ways to make winning trades more likely—and losing trades less common • When to trade short options—and how to manage the risk Why careful option selling may improve your odds of success • Master strategies designed for diverse market conditions Combine long and short options to create the right strategy for any market opportunity • Exploit short-lived trends through “synthetic” swing trading Get the advantages of futures contracts without the volatility

This is the eBook version of the printed book. This Element is an excerpt from A Trader's First Book on Commodities: An Introduction to The World's Fastest Growing Market (9780137015450) by Carley Garner. Available in print and digital formats. Hedging 101: Why hedging is now more important than ever--and how it works. Now more than ever, businesses are looking to the futures markets for an efficient means of mitigating the price risk associated with their operations. The opportunity to hedge isn’t without costs or inconveniences. Nonetheless, excessive volatility in commodity prices has created an environment in which the burden of hedging can easily be justified by the potential detriment of assuming the price risk outright....

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,7, University of Mannheim, language: English, abstract: The commodity futures contract is an agreement to deliver a specific amount of commodity at a future time . There are usually choices of deliverable grades, delivery locations and delivery dates. Hedging belongs to one of the fundamental functions of futures market. Futures can be used to help producers and buyers protect themselves from price risk arising from many factors. For instance, in crude oil commodities, price risk occurs due to disrupted oil supply as a consequence of political issues, increasing of demand in emerging markets, turnaround in energy policy from the fossil fuel to the solar and efficient energy, etc. By hedging with futures, producers and users can set the prices they will receive or pay within a fixed range. A hedger takes a short position if he/she sells futures contracts while owning the underlying commodity to be delivered; a long position if he/she purchases futures contracts. The commonly known basis is defined as the difference between the futures and spot prices, which is mostly time-varying and mean-reverting. Due to such basis risk, a naïve hedging (equal and opposite) is unlikely to be effective. With the popularity of commodity futures, how to determine and implement the optimal hedging strategy has become an important issue in the field of risk management. Hedging strategies have been intensively studied since the 1960s. One of the most popular approaches to hedging is to quantify risk as variance, known as minimum-variance (MV) hedging. This hedging strategy is based on Markowitz portfolio theory, resting on the result that “a weighted portfolio of two assets will have a variance lower than the weighted average variance of the two individual assets, as long as the two assets are not perfectly and positively correlated.” MV strategy is quite well accepted, however, it ignores the expected return of the hedged portfolio and the risk preference of investors. Other hedging models with different objective functions have been studied intensively in hedging literature. Due to the conceptual simplicity, the value at risk (VaR) and conditional value at risk (C)VaR have been adopted as the hedging risk objective function. [...]

Commodity Risk Management goes beyond just an introductory treatment of derivative securities, dealing with more advanced topics and approaching the subject matter from a unique perspective. At its core lies the concept that commodity risk management decisions require an in-depth understanding of speculative strategies, and vice versa. The book offers readers a unified treatment of important concepts and techniques that are useful in applying derivative securities in the management of risk in commodity markets. While some of these techniques are well known and fairly common, Poitras offers applications to specific situations and links to speculative trading strategies - extensions of the material that not only are hard to come by, but helpful to both the academic and the practitioner. The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the general framework for commodity risk management, the second part focuses on the use of derivative security contracts in commodity risk management, and the third part deals with applications to three specific situations. As a textbook, this book is designed to appeal to classes at a senior undergraduate/MBA/MA levelof training in Finance, financial economics, actuarial science, management science, agriculturaleconomics and accounting. There will also be interest for the book as: a monograph for research libraries, a handbook for individuals working in the commodity risk management industry, and a guidebook for those in the general public interested in topics like farm risk management or the assessment of hedging practices of publicly-traded commodity producers.

Today's Premier Guidebook for Understanding Agricultural Options and Making Them a Key Part of Your Trading and Risk Management Strategy Agricultural futures and options represent a vital niche in today's options trading world. Trading and Hedging with Agricultural Futures and Options takes an in-depth look at these valuable trading tools, and presents clear, proven strategies and techniques for both hedgers and traders to achieve their goals while minimizing risk. Relying on nuts-and-bolts techniques and examples as opposed to the mathematical models and theory favored by other options-trading manuals this practical, hands-on book discusses many topics, including: How hedgers and traders can use options effectively with realistic expectations Methods to understand price behavior including the "Greeks" (delta, gamma, vega, and theta) The importance of volatility and little-known ways to make it work to your advantage For producers and processors, agricultural futures and options are necessary components for controlling costs and hedging risks. For traders, they are proven vehicles for earning exceptional risk-adjusted profits. Whichever side of the aisle you are on, Trading and Hedging with Agricultural Futures and Options will provide you with the answers you need to effectively use these versatile tools and make them an integral part of your business.

A commodity and energy trading and risk management strategy book for the boardroom to the back-office, front-2-back, risk to regulatory, and asset optimization to accounting modeling and reporting. One of the key takeaways is how human nature affects each and every employee from senior leadership to the staff level.