Using Artificial Neural Networks to Support the Decision-Making Process of Buying Call Options Considering Risk Appetite

During the COVID-19 pandemic, uncertainty has increased in many areas of both business supply and demand, notably oil demand and pricing have become even more unpredictable than before. Thus, for companies that buy large quantities of oil, effective oil price risk management is crucial for business success. Nevertheless, businesses’ risk appetite, specifically willingness to accept more risk to achieve desired business benefits, varies significantly. The aim of this paper is to deepen the analysis of the effectiveness of employing artificial neural networks (ANNs) in hedging against oil price changes by searching for buy signals for European WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil call options, while taking into account the level of risk appetite. The number of generated buy signals decreases with increasing risk appetite, and thus the amount of capital necessary to buy options decreases. However, the results show that fewer buy signals do not necessarily translate into lower returns generated by networks in a given class. Thus, higher levels of return on the purchase of call options may be obtained. The conducted analyses clearly proved that ANNs can be a useful tool in the process of managing WTI crude oil price change risk. Using the analyzed network parameters, up to 29.9% of the theoretical maximum possible profit from buying options every day was obtained in the test set. Furthermore, all proposed networks generated some profit for the test set. The values of all indicators used in the analyses confirm that the ANNs can be effective regardless of the level of risk appetite, so in this respect they may be described as a universal decision support tool.

Financial impact of using EUR call options to hedge accounts receivables

International business has grown rapidly in recent years as companies seek to take advantage of expanding supply chain opportunities. As companies enter into contracts to take advantage of engineering, production, and cost reduction capabilities of the global supply chain, they may be creating a foreign currency exchange rate risk. The purpose of this research was to determine the EUR/USD exchange rate risk within a relatively short time frame such as in 60-day accounts receivable and if using currency options to hedge this risk would be financially beneficial on a transactional basis. The quantitative study examined the 60-day EUR/USD exchange rate fluctuation and the use of currency call options to hedge the risk associated with EUR/USD currency fluctuations. The researcher analyzed 13 years of historical EUR/USD currency data and 10 years of actual EUR call options premiums for this research paper. The researcher concluded that the variability of the EUR/USD over 60-days does pose financial risk to a company. The study also found that using currency call options to hedge this 60-day exchange rate risk resulted in an overall transactional financial loss as compared to no hedging. However, research studies have shown that the use of hedging instruments to smooth financial results may result in lower overall financing costs which could offset the hedging transactional costs. This study did not address the benefits of the use of hedging to smooth financial results or obtain other related financial benefits. The researcher recommends that a firm should recognize the exchange rate risks it may be establishing within 60-day EUR or USD payable contracts and develop an appropriate hedging strategy.

Efficient Variance Reduction for American Call Options Using Symmetry Arguments

Recently it was shown that the estimated American call prices obtained with regression and simulation based methods can be significantly improved on by using put-call symmetry. This paper extends these results and demonstrates that it is also possible to significantly reduce the variance of the estimated call price by applying variance reduction techniques to corresponding symmetric put options. First, by comparing performance for pairs of call and (symmetric) put options for which the solution coincides, our results show that efficiency gains from variance reduction methods are different for calls and symmetric puts. Second, control variates should always be used and is the most efficient method. Furthermore, since control variates is more effective for puts than calls, and since symmetric pricing already offers some variance reduction, we demonstrate that drastic reductions in the standard deviation of the estimated call price is obtained by combining all three variance reduction techniques in a symmetric pricing approach. This reduces the standard deviation by a factor of over 20 for long maturity call options on highly volatile assets. Finally, we show that our findings are not particular to using in-sample pricing but also hold when using an out-of-sample pricing approach.

Hedging the Price Risk Inherent in Revenue Protection Insurance

Crop revenue insurance is unique, because it involves a guarantee subsuming yield risk and highly systematic price risk. This study examines whether crop insurers could use options instead of, or in addition to, assigning policies to the Commercial Funds of the USDA Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) as per the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA) to hedge the price risk of revenue insurance policies. The behavioral model examines the optimal hedge ratio for a crop insurer with a book of business consisting of corn Revenue Protection (RP) policies. Results show that a mix of put and call options can hedge the price risk of the RP policies. The higher optimal hedge ratios of call options as compared to put options imply that the risk of increased liability due to upside price risk can be hedged using options better than downside price risk. This study also analyzed the combination of options with the SRA at 35, 50, and 75% retention levels. The zero optimal hedge ratios at each retention level and the negative correlation between RP indemnities and the option returns when the crop insurer mixed options and SRA suggest that the purchasing of options provides no additional risk protection to crop insurers beyond what is provided by the SRA despite retention limits.

Market Trends and Options Trading: Viewpoint, Probability and Implications

In Dow theory, market trends are classified as secular trends for long-term frames, primary trends for medium-term frames, and secondary trends for short-term frames. For the long and medium terms, they can consist of major bull (bear) markets and minor bear (bull) markets; for the short terms, they may have corrections and bear rallies. These definitions of market trends are not very helpful to options traders because in practice, options trading is often done on a short-term time frame and options have a unique property of time value. Even in a bull market, there is a possibility of losing all money for buying call options; in a bear market, there is a probability of earning money for buying call options. This inconsistency often troubles options traders deeply. From the viewpoint of options trading, we introduce a new concept of analyzing the market trends and propose new methods for estimating the probabilities of the market trends since at any time the future prices are unknown. By simplifying the market trends into three concepts of uptrend, downtrend, and neutral trend, it will have consistent implications for options trading. JEL classification numbers: C13, G10, G13. Keywords: Market trends, Options trading, Trend probability, Estimation methods, Trading implications.

An Asymptotic Solution for Call Options on Zero-Coupon Bonds

We present an asymptotic solution for call options on zero-coupon bonds, assuming a stochastic process for the price of the bond, rather than for interest rates in general. The stochastic process for the bond price incorporates dampening of the price return volatility based on the maturity of the bond. We derive the PDE in a similar way to Black and Scholes. Using a perturbation approach, we derive an asymptotic solution for the value of a call option. The result is interesting, as the leading order terms are equivalent to the Black–Scholes model and the additional next order terms provide an adjustment to Black–Scholes that results from the stochastic process for the price of the bond. In addition, based on the asymptotic solution, we derive delta, gamma, vega and theta solutions. We present some comparison values for the solution and the Greeks.

Problemic issues of legal regulation of the circulation of some types of options in Ukraine

Problem setting. In Ukraine, the use of options is increasingly frequent. Options attract both employee and employer, since it allows the employee to take part in the management of the company, and for the employer makes employees more motivated. A lot of IT-companies including EPAM, Ajax, Vimeo and others, have already used options. Nevertheless, legal regulation of options has many gaps. Target research. The main goal of this research is to define the concept of an option, its characteristics and types. To analyze the legal regulation and actual development of options in Ukraine. It also includes identification of problems of legal regulation of the circulation of some types of options in Ukraine. Analysis of recent researches and publications. Options and their market was the object of research of a large number of scientists, among which, Adamenko M. V., Voronchenko O. V., Kashubina Yu. V., Kolosovsky D. V., Pidvysotsky Ya. V., Shulga N. P. and others whose doctrinal developments provide an important theoretical basis for studying the nature and essence of options and its role between other securities. Article’s main body. The definition of an option was identified in the article. It was determined, that an option is a type of secuirities that entitles one party to purchase (sell) a certain asset during the option’s period or at a specific date, and the other party to sell (buy) the asset. It was researched that there are such types of options like put- and call- options, american and european options. Legal regulation and practical using of options in IT-sphere were analysed. The next problems in option using was discovered: high asset value, short terms, difficulty in buying securities and receiving dividends, difficulty in understanding how to use options and others. Conclusions and prospects of development. Legal regulation of options has many gaps and problematic issues that are related to the difficulty of understanding the mechanism of the option, the lack of guarantees, the impossibility of buying an asset, which makes the option ineffective. In this way, there is a need to improve the legal regulation of options circulation, including in matters of vesting, which would ensure guarantees of the rights of option owners and its effectiveness as a tool for attracting investment and increasing the motivation of employees.

Financial impact of using EUR call options to hedge accounts receivables

International business has grown rapidly in recent years as companies seek to take advantage of expanding supply chain opportunities. As companies enter into contracts to take advantage of engineering, production, and cost reduction capabilities of the global supply chain, they may be creating a foreign currency exchange rate risk. The quantitative study examined the 60-day EUR/USD exchange rate fluctuation and the use of currency call options to hedge the risk associated with EUR/USD currency fluctuations. The researcher analyzed 13 years of historical EUR/USD currency data and 10 years of actual EUR call options premiums for this research paper. The researcher concluded that the variability of the EUR/USD over 60-days does pose financial risk to a company. The study also found that using currency call options to hedge this 60-day exchange rate risk resulted in an overall transactional financial loss as compared to no hedging. However, research studies have shown that the use of hedging instruments to smooth financial results may result in lower overall financing costs which could offset the hedging transactional costs. This study did not address the benefits of the use of hedging to smooth financial results or obtain other related financial benefits. The researcher recommends that a firm should recognize the exchange rate risks it may be establishing within 60-day EUR or USD payable contracts and develop an appropriate hedging strategy.

Pricing energy contracts under regime switching time-changed Levy Processes

The failures of the popular Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) model led to an interest in new, robust models which could more accurately model the behavior of historical prices. We consider one such model, the regime switching time-changed Levy process, which builds upon the BSM model by incorporating jumps through a random clock, as well as randomly varying parameters according to a continuous-time Markov chain. We develop the characteristic function as well as two methods for pricing European call options. Finally, we estimate the parameters of the model by incorporating historic energy data and option quotes using a variety of methods.

Pricing energy contracts under regime switching time-changed Levy Processes

The failures of the popular Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) model led to an interest in new, robust models which could more accurately model the behavior of historical prices. We consider one such model, the regime switching time-changed Levy process, which builds upon the BSM model by incorporating jumps through a random clock, as well as randomly varying parameters according to a continuous-time Markov chain. We develop the characteristic function as well as two methods for pricing European call options. Finally, we estimate the parameters of the model by incorporating historic energy data and option quotes using a variety of methods.