Time-Discrete Hedging of Down-and-Out Puts with Overnight Trading Gaps

Hedging down-and-out puts (and up-and-out calls), where the maximum payoff is reached just before a barrier is hit that would render the claim worthless afterwards, is challenging. All hedging methods potentially lead to large errors when the underlying is already close to the barrier and the hedge portfolio can only be adjusted in discrete time intervals. In this paper, we analyze this hedging situation, especially the case of overnight trading gaps. We show how a position in a short-term vanilla call option can be used for efficient hedging. Using a mean-variance hedging approach, we calculate optimal hedge ratios for both the underlying and call options as hedge instruments. We derive semi-analytical formulas for optimal hedge ratios in a Black–Scholes setting for continuous trading (as a benchmark) and in the case of trading gaps. For more complex models, we show in a numerical study that the semi-analytical formulas can be used as a sufficient approximation, even when stochastic volatility and jumps are present.

Evaluating the Efficiency of Portfolio-Hedging Strategies by Incorporating Third Degree Stochastic Dominance Criteria and Data Envelopment Analysis

The chapter investigates chosen hedging strategies with options as useful risk hedging instruments. Assuming that average investor prefers greater return, is risk-averse, and prefers greater positive skewness, the performance of different hedged and unhedged portfolios is evaluated using stochastic dominance (SD) criteria and data envelopment analysis (DEA). The SD is examined up to the third degree (TSD) using Davidson-Duclos (DD) test. In the DEA, a super efficiency BCC model is used. It is investigated how these two methodologies can be combined and how the TSD criteria can be integrated into DEA in order to simplify the analysis of determining efficient hedging strategies with options.

Hedging with commodity futures: evidence from the coffee market in Vietnam

In July 2018, the Vietnam Commodity Exchange (VNX) was transferred into the Mercantile Exchange of Vietnam (MXV) to hedge price risks through futures on international commodity exchanges. This research aimed to verify the efficiency of futures on ICE EU and ICE US under the perspective of hedging for Vietnamese coffee, determine optimal hedging ratios and the optimal number of each futures contract, and investigate the feasibility of introducing domestic commodity exchanges in Vietnam. Using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), the results show that (1) Robusta futures with expiration dates of January, March, May, and July on ICE EU are efficient hedging tools, but the adverse result is justified for Arabica futures on ICE US; (2) Robusta futures with the expiration date of January are the best in terms of risk management for Vietnamese coffee market; (3) optimal hedge ratio of Robusta futures of around 34% is much lower than ratios showed by previous researches; (4) in the short term, introducing coffee futures into the domestic commodity exchanges is still not feasible in the short term, but should be considered in the long term in Vietnam. This is the first study providing empirical evidence about the hedging role of futures contracts on ICE EU and ICE US, contributing to enrich the existing empirical evidence on the hedging role of futures for the agricultural sector.

EFFICIENT HEDGING OF PATH–DEPENDENT OPTIONS

In this paper, we propose a novel method of hedging path-dependent options in a discrete-time setup. Assuming that prices are given by the Black–Scholes model, we first describe the residual risk when hedging a path-dependent option using only an European option. Then, for a fixed hedging interval, we find the hedging option that minimizes the shortfall risk, which we define as the expectation of the shortfall weighted by some loss function. We illustrate the method using Asian options, but the methodology is applicable to other path-dependent contacts.