The impact of embedded location options on price discovery of agricultural futures contracts – the evidence from the Chana contract

Purpose Embedded options can create asymmetries in information impounded by cash and futures markets, causing errors in price discovery estimation. This paper aims to investigate the impact of embedded location options on measures of price discovery. Design/methodology/approach Various price discovery metrics are computed using observed futures prices that contain embedded location options and cash prices for Chana. Prices of a futures contract that contains no options using observed futures prices and estimates of location option value are synthesized. The price discovery measures are recomputed using synthetic option-adjusted futures contract prices and cash prices, and changes in these measures are attributed to the impact of the embedded location option. Findings If the presence of the location option is ignored, futures appear to dominate price discovery. Once the location option is adjusted for, cash markets are found to dominate price discovery. Research limitations/implications The lack of complete time-series data from the exchange for multiple commodities allows only limited empirical evidence for generalizing conclusions. Practical implications This paper highlights that regulators, exchanges and policymakers in India need to revisit delivery specifications of agricultural commodity futures contracts to enhance their utility from a price discovery perspective. Originality/value This work shows that ignoring the presence of embedded options can cause significant errors in price discovery assessment of agricultural futures contracts, particularly in heterogenous cash markets.

Credit Risk in G20 Nations: A Comparative Analysis in International Finance Using Option-Adjusted-Spreads

Corporate bond yields are the manifestation of the cost of financing for private firms, and if properly evaluated, they provide researchers with valuable risk information. Within this context, this work is the first study producing corporate yield spreads for all S&P-rated bonds of G20 nations to explain their comparative riskiness. The option-adjusted spread analysis is an advanced method that enables us to compare the bonds with embedded options and different cash flow characteristics. For securities with embedded options, the volatility in the interest rates plays a role in ascertaining whether the option is going to be invoked or not. Therefore, researchers need a spread that, when added to all the forward rates on the tree, will make the theoretical value equal to the market price. The spread that satisfies this condition is called the option-adjusted spread, since it considers the option embedded into the issue. Ultimately, this work investigates the credit risk differentials of S&P rated outstanding bonds issued by the G20 nations to provide international finance professionals with option-adjusted corporate yield spreads showing the credit risk attributable to debt instruments. Detailed results computed using OAS methodology are presented in tables and used to answer the six vital credit-risk-related questions introduced in the introduction.

Pricing of Embedded Options in Bank Deposits and Loans Based on Jump-Diffusion Interest Rate Model

The marketization of interest rate is an inevitable requirement for China’s financial reform and joining the WTO to connect with the international financial market. It is also an important link to improve the marketization degree of China’s financial system. The marketization of interest rate in China is gradually advancing according to its preset mode. In the process of interest rate marketization, an unavoidable problem is that while the interest rate marketization gives the commercial banks the autonomy of capital pricing, the fluctuation of interest rate is more and more frequent. However, due to the fluctuation of interest rate, the loan as the main assets of commercial banks will be prepayed by borrowers, and the time deposit as the main liabilities of commercial banks will be withdrawn by depositors in advance; that is, embedded options are implied in asset liability items, which makes it difficult for commercial banks to accurately calculate the actual interest margin of deposits and loans and manage the interest rate risk. Therefore, it is of great significance to identify and price such embedded option value. On the basis of identifying and decomposing the embedded options in deposit and loan of commercial banks, according to the change characteristics of deposit and loan interest rate of Chinese commercial banks, this paper chooses jump-diffusion interest rate model to describe the change of benchmark interest rate of deposit and loan in China and demonstrates the advantages of this model compared with other models. Based on Monte Carlo simulation technology, the embedded options of five-year fixed deposit and ten-year prepayable loan in China are priced. On this basis, it points out that the real interest margin of commercial bank’s deposit and loan should be the nominal interest margin minus the value of deposit and loan’s embedded options. In the process of interest rate risk management, we should pay attention to the existence of embedded options and carry out effective management.

Alternatives to Traditional Mortgage Financing in Residential Real Estate: Rent to Own and Contract for Deed Sales

Due to the tightening of conditions required to obtain a mortgage loan following the recent financial crisis, the rent-to-own contract and contract for deed sales for residential real estate have become increasingly popular among potential home buyers and sellers. In this study, after analyzing the embedded options in the contracts, I use option-theoretic methods to develop models for valuing both contracts for deed sale and rent-to-own contracts, which can be used to determine equilibrium monthly payments and the equilibrium down payment.

Measuring Interest Rate Risk with Embedded Option Using HPL-MC Method in Fuzzy and Stochastic Environment

Under the condition of continuous innovation of financial derivatives and marketization of interest rate, interest rates fluctuate more frequently and fiercely, and the measurement of interest rate risk also attracts more attention. Under the premise that the fluctuation of interest rate follows fuzzy stochastic process, based on the option characteristics of financial instruments with embedded option, this paper takes effective duration and effective convexity as tools to measure interest rate risk when embedded options exist, tries to choose CIR extended model as term structure model, and uses the Monte Carlo method for hybrid low deviation sequences (HPL-MC) to analyze the prepayment characteristics of MBS, a representative financial instrument with embedded options, when interest rates fluctuate; on this basis, the effectiveness of effective duration management of interest rate risk is demonstrated with asset liability management cases of commercial banks.

Risk Management for Bonds with Embedded Options

This paper examines the behavior of the interest rate risk management measures for bonds with embedded options and studies factors it depends on. The contingent option exercise implies that both the pricing and the risk management of bonds requires modelling future interest rates. We use the Ho and Lee (HL) and Black, Derman, and Toy (BDT) consistent interest rate models. In addition, specific interest rate measures that consider the contingent cash-flow structure of these coupon-bearing bonds must be computed. In our empirical analysis, we obtained evidence that effective duration and effective convexity depend primarily on the level of the forward interest rate and volatility. In addition, the higher the interest rate change and the lower the volatility, the greater the differences in pricing of these bonds when using the HL or BDT models.

Exact cash-account deflator for the G2++ model

In this paper, we shall propose a Monte Carlo simulation technique applied to a G2++ model: even when the number of simulated paths is small, our technique allows to find a precise simulated deflator. In particular, we shall study the transition law of the discrete random variable :[Formula: see text] in the time span [Formula: see text] conditional on the observation at time [Formula: see text], and we apply it in a recursive way to build the different paths of the simulation. We shall apply the proposed technique to the insurance industry, and in particular to the issue of pricing insurance contracts with embedded options and guarantees.