Clearinghouses Versus Central Counterparties From Margin Calculation Point Of View

Clearinghouses and central counterparties (CCPs) have a notable role in financial markets, namely facilitating securities trading and derivative transactions on exchanges and over-the-counter markets. They have to clear the transactions and carry out their settlements to decrease costs and settlement risk. To efficiently carry out this activity, they need to collect adequate collateral from the trading parties as guarantees. Two main elements of these guarantees are the margin requirement and default fund contribution. Our paper focuses on the margin calculations and emphasizes their notable difference in the case of clearinghouses and CCPs. Our main result is that clearinghouses’ margin requirement is better from a procyclicality point of view; however, CCP margining is more prudent based on our results.

How is it Done? : Comparison between the Margin Calculation Methodology of Central Counterparties and Clearinghouses

Clearinghouses and central counterparties have become the backbone of financial markets by stepping between trades, facilitating securities trading, and derivative transactions on exchanges and overthe-counter markets. In the literature and in practice, too, the notion of clearinghouse and central counterparty are used as synonyms, but there is still a slight difference that highlights their distinction. This paper focuses on the margin calculation methodology of these institutions and emphasizes the contrast between the two. Results show that although capturing the same risks, clearinghouses’ margin requirement is better from a procyclicality and cash flow management point of view; however, central counterparties margining is more prudent based on our results.

Evaluation of Chinese E-commerce Cost and Lead Time Performance to Estonia

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> Retail sales growth has been sluggish in the recent decade in North European countries. Number of factors have caused this, like problems in macro-economy, sanctions and the effect of ageing population. Also increasing amount of e-commerce from China has taken its share. Future development paths need to be researched further to identify the outlook of North European retail.</p><p><strong>Methodology/Approach:</strong> Four different imported items were examined, which were hypothetically planned to be brought on Estonian consumer markets from China. We take into account freight costs, custom duties, VAT and profit margin requirement. Also lead time performance is being examined.</p><p><strong>Findings:</strong> Analysis shows that company based imports is not that viable model as profit margin requirement as well as governmental costs (duty and VAT) take lion share from overall costs. Even if profit requirement of company importing the products would decrease, wage inflation in Asia and freight will probably lead to higher product prices. Therefore, e-commerce needs to enlarge to lower cost manufacturing locations and/or use more direct sales to consumers. Total lead time soughts new solutions too (e.g. railway connection to Europe).</p><p><strong>Research Limitation/implication:</strong> Examination is limited to small Estonian market, and their custom tariffs and VAT. Also logistics costs to Northern Europe are higher than to Central Europe.</p><strong>Originality/Value of paper:</strong>Research is one of the first based on the examination of products and overall costs. It adds value through understanding of import cost structures.<p> </p>

The Effect of Discriminative Trading Frictions on Option Strategies

I estimate that a margin as trading frictions has an effect on the strategies of writing options. The important results are as follows. First, by the margin requirement is increased, the size of short position is reduced. Second, the discrimination of a margin requirement is due to the way that the member margin is imposed less about 1/3 than the customer margin by derivatives market business regulation in KRX. Third, the customer margin is from 1.4 to 1.6 times more than the member margin, and the margin “haircut” ratio is similar to that of the margin. Fourth, by target weight increases, the difference between target weight and effective weight is increased. Fifth, by target weight is increased, the member have higher returns on writing combination position than the customer have. It means that when investors increase the size of short position using all of account, they not only can suffer loss because of margin call but also can make profit. Overall, the difference between the returns of the member and the returns of the customer can be quite substantial. So, this paper contributes to the literature that studies the impact of the different imposition of margins by showing how frictions limit the customer from supplying liquidity to the market and hence releasing pressure on the member.

Effect of Margin Requirement on Default Risk and Liquidity in the Korean Futures Market

Margin requirements are often viewed as an effective policy tool to prevent the default risk and maintain market stability. For the Korean futures market, this paper examines whether the margin requirements work normally as a tool to prevent default risk and margin changes have impact on futures trading activity. KOSPI200 stock index futures, USD (U.S. Dollar) futures, and 3-year KTB (Korean Treasury Bond) futures are included in the sample for the period from 2010 to 2015. Using the simulation method assuming the worst situation, we find that the possibility of default occurs once for KOSPI200 futures, twice for 3-year KTB futures, and 7 times for USD futures during the sample period. This result suggests that active margin requirement policy is necessary to prepare for financial market turbulence. In addition, we find that the margin changes do not have a significant impact on the futures trading activity, suggesting that decreases in margins are not effective means to improve liquidity in the Korean futures market