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Hedging
Terms modified by Hedging Selected AbstractsTHE COST OF ILLIQUIDITY AND ITS EFFECTS ON HEDGINGMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 4 2010L. C. G. Rogers Though liquidity is commonly believed to be a major effect in financial markets, there appears to be no consensus definition of what it is or how it is to be measured. In this paper, we understand liquidity as a nonlinear transaction cost incurred as a function of rate of change of portfolio. Using this definition, we obtain the optimal hedging policy for the hedging of a call option in a Black-Scholes model. This is a more challenging question than the more common studies of optimal strategy for liquidating an initial position, because our goal requires us to match a random final value. The solution we obtain reduces in the case of quadratic loss to the solution of three partial differential equations of Black-Scholes type, one of them nonlinear. [source] OPTIMAL CONTINUOUS-TIME HEDGING WITH LEPTOKURTIC RETURNSMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2007We examine the behavior of optimal mean,variance hedging strategies at high rebalancing frequencies in a model where stock prices follow a discretely sampled exponential Lévy process and one hedges a European call option to maturity. Using elementary methods we show that all the attributes of a discretely rebalanced optimal hedge, i.e., the mean value, the hedge ratio, and the expected squared hedging error, converge pointwise in the state space as the rebalancing interval goes to zero. The limiting formulae represent 1-D and 2-D generalized Fourier transforms, which can be evaluated much faster than backward recursion schemes, with the same degree of accuracy. In the special case of a compound Poisson process we demonstrate that the convergence results hold true if instead of using an infinitely divisible distribution from the outset one models log returns by multinomial approximations thereof. This result represents an important extension of Cox, Ross, and Rubinstein to markets with leptokurtic returns. [source] Hedging Affecting Firm Value via Financing and Investment: Evidence from Property Insurance UseFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Hong Zou I provide evidence about the value effects of alternative risk management by examining corporate purchase of property insurance, a commonly used pure hedge of asset-loss risks. Using an insurance data set from China, I find that there is an inverted U-shape effect of the extent of property insurance use on firm value measured by several versions of Tobin's Q. Therefore, the use of property insurance, to a certain degree, has a positive effect on firm value; however, over insurance appears detrimental to firm value. Given that the inflection points occur at relatively high levels of the observed insurance spending, insurance use appears beneficial to the majority of my sample firms. The estimated average hedging premium is about 1.5%. I demonstrate that an avenue for insurance to create value in China is that it helps firms secure valuable new debt financing and enhance investment. [source] Some Recent Developments in Futures HedgingJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 3 2002Donald Lien The use of futures contracts as a hedging instrument has been the focus of much research. At the theoretical level, an optimal hedge strategy is traditionally based on the expected,utility maximization paradigm. A simplification of this paradigm leads to the minimum,variance criterion. Although this paradigm is quite well accepted, alternative approaches have been sought. At the empirical level, research on futures hedging has benefited from the recent developments in the econometrics literature. Much research has been done on improving the estimation of the optimal hedge ratio. As more is known about the statistical properties of financial time series, more sophisticated estimation methods are proposed. In this survey we review some recent developments in futures hedging. We delineate the theoretical underpinning of various methods and discuss the econometric implementation of the methods. [source] Handling Weather Related Risks Through the Financial Markets: Considerations of Credit Risk, Basis Risk, and HedgingJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2007Linda L. Golden The profits of many businesses are strongly affected by weather related events, and insurance against weather related risks (acts of God) has been a traditional domain for transfer of (certain) of these risks. Recent innovations in the capital market have now provided financial instruments to transfer and hedge some of these risks. Unlike insurance solutions, however, using these financial derivative instruments creates a situation in which the return to the purchaser of the instrument is no longer perfectly correlated with the loss experienced. Such a mismatch creates new risks which must be examined and evaluated as part of ascertaining cost effective risk management plans. Two newly engendered risks, basis risk (the risk created by the fact that the return from the financial derivative is a function of weather at a prespecified geographical location which may not be identical to the location of the firm) and credit risk (the risk that the counterparty to the derivative contract may not perform), are analyzed in this article. Using custom tailored derivatives from the over the counter market can decrease basis risk, but increases credit risk. Using standardized exchange traded derivatives decreases credit risk but increases basis risk. Here also the effectiveness of using hedging methods involving forwards and futures having linear payoffs (linear hedging) and methods using derivatives having nonlinear payoffs such as those involving options (nonlinear hedging) for the purpose of hedging basis risk are examined jointly with credit risk. [source] Stock Options and the Corporate Demand for InsuranceJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2006Li-Ming Han This article shows that a corporate manager compensated in stock options makes corporate decisions to maximize stock option value. Overinvestment is a consequence if risk increases with investment. Facing the choice of hedging corporate risk with forward contracts on a stock market index fund and insuring pure risks the manager will choose the latter. Hedging with forwards reduces weight in both tails of corporate payoff distribution and thus reduces option value. Insuring pure risks reduces the weight in the left tail where the options are out-of-the-money and increases the weight in the right tail where the options are in-the-money; the effect is an increase in the option value. Insurance reduces the overinvestment problem but no level of insurance coverage can reduce investment to that which maximizes the shareholder value. [source] Hedging under Transaction Costs in Currency Markets: a Discrete-Time ModelMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2002FREDDY DELBAEN We consider a discrete-time model of a currency market with transaction costs and give a description of initial endowments that allow the investor to hedge a contingent claim in various currencies by a self-financing portfolio. [source] Robust Hedging of Barrier OptionsMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2001Haydyn Brown This article considers the pricing and hedging of barrier options in a market in which call options are liquidly traded and can be used as hedging instruments. This use of call options means that market preferences and beliefs about the future behavior of the underlying assets are in some sense incorporated into the hedge and do not need to be specified exogenously. Thus we are able to find prices for exotic derivatives which are independent of any model for the underlying asset. For example we do not need to assume that the underlying assets follow an exponential Brownian motion. We find model-independent upper and lower bounds on the prices of knock-in and knock-out puts and calls. If the market prices the barrier options outside these limits then we give simple strategies for generating profits at zero risk. Examples illustrate that the bounds we give can be fairly tight. [source] Mean-Variance Hedging for Stochastic Volatility ModelsMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2000Francesca Biagini In this paper we discuss the tractability of stochastic volatility models for pricing and hedging options with the mean-variance hedging approach. We characterize the variance-optimal measure as the solution of an equation between Doléans exponentials; explicit examples include both models where volatility solves a diffusion equation and models where it follows a jump process. We further discuss the closedness of the space of strategies. [source] Firm Value and Hedging: Evidence from U.S. Oil and Gas ProducersTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2006YANBO JIN ABSTRACT This paper studies the hedging activities of 119 U.S. oil and gas producers from 1998 to 2001 and evaluates their effect on firm value. Theories of hedging based on market imperfections imply that hedging should increase the firm's market value (MV). To test this hypothesis, we collect detailed information on the extent of hedging and on the valuation of oil and gas reserves. We verify that hedging reduces the firm's stock price sensitivity to oil and gas prices. Contrary to previous studies, however, we find that hedging does not seem to affect MVs for this industry. [source] Hedging or Market Timing?THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2005Selecting the Interest Rate Exposure of Corporate Debt ABSTRACT This paper examines whether firms are hedging or timing the market when selecting the interest rate exposure of their new debt issuances. I use a more accurate measure of the interest rate exposure chosen by firms by combining the initial exposure of newly issued debt securities with their use of interest rate swaps. The results indicate that the final interest rate exposure is largely driven by the slope of the yield curve at the time the debt is issued. These results suggest that interest rate risk management practices are primarily driven by speculation or myopia, not hedging considerations. [source] Hedging and value at risk: A semi-parametric approachTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 8 2010Zhiguang Cao The non-normality of financial asset returns has important implications for hedging. In particular, in contrast with the unambiguous effect that minimum-variance hedging has on the standard deviation, it can actually increase the negative skewness and kurtosis of hedge portfolio returns. Thus, the reduction in Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) that minimum-variance hedging generates can be significantly lower than the reduction in standard deviation. In this study, we provide a new, semi-parametric method of estimating minimum-VaR and minimum-CVaR hedge ratios based on the Cornish-Fisher expansion of the quantile of the hedged portfolio return distribution. Using spot and futures returns for the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, and FTSE Small Cap equity indices, the Euro/US Dollar exchange rate, and Brent crude oil, we find that the semiparametric approach is superior to the standard minimum-variance approach, and to the nonparametric approach of Harris and Shen (2006). In particular, it provides a greater reduction in both negative skewness and excess kurtosis, and consequently generates hedge portfolios that in most cases have lower VaR and CVaR. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 30:780,794, 2010 [source] Hedging under counterparty credit uncertaintyTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 3 2008Olivier Mahul This study investigates optimal production and hedging decisions for firms facing price risk that can be hedged with vulnerable contracts, i.e., exposed to nonhedgeable endogenous counterparty credit risk. When vulnerable forward contracts are the only hedging instruments available, the firm's optimal level of production is lower than without credit risk. Under plausible conditions on the stochastic dependence between the commodity price and the counterparty's assets, the firm does not sell its entire production on the vulnerable forward market. When options on forward contracts are also available, the optimal hedging strategy requires a long put position. This provides a new rationale for the hedging role of options in the over-the-counter markets exposed to counterparty credit risk. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28: 248,263, 2008 [source] Hedging under the influence of transaction costs: An empirical investigation on FTSE 100 index optionsTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 5 2007Andros Gregoriou The Black,Scholes (BS; F. Black & M. Scholes, 1973) option pricing model, and modern parametric option pricing models in general, assume that a single unique price for the underlying instrument exists, and that it is the mid- (the average of the ask and the bid) price. In this article the authors consider the Financial Times and London Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index Options for the time period 1992,1997. They estimate the ask and bid prices for the index, and show that, when substituted for the mid-price in the BS formula, they provide superior option price predictors, for call and put options, respectively. This result is reinforced further when they .t a non-parametric neural network model to market prices of liquid options. The empirical .ndings in this article suggest that the ask and bid prices of the underlying asset provide a superior fit to the mid/closing price because they include market maker's, compensation for providing liquidity in the market for constituent stocks of the FTSE 100 index. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:471,494, 2007 [source] Hedging and value at riskTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 4 2006Richard D. F. Harris In this article, it is shown that although minimum-variance hedging unambiguously reduces the standard deviation of portfolio returns, it can increase both left skewness and kurtosis; consequently the effectiveness of hedging in terms of value at risk (VaR) and conditional value at risk (CVaR) is uncertain. The reduction in daily standard deviation is compared with the reduction in 1-day 99% VaR and CVaR for 20 cross-hedged currency portfolios with the use of historical simulation. On average, minimum-variance hedging reduces both VaR and CVaR by about 80% of the reduction in standard deviation. Also investigated, as an alternative to minimum-variance hedging, are minimum-VaR and minimum-CVaR hedging strategies that minimize the historical-simulation VaR and CVaR of the hedge portfolio, respectively. The in-sample results suggest that in terms of VaR and CVaR reduction, minimum-VaR and minimum-CVaR hedging can potentially yield small but consistent improvements over minimum-variance hedging. The out-of-sample results are more mixed, although there is a small improvement for minimum-VaR hedging for the majority of the currencies considered. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:369,390, 2006 [source] Why Do Firms Raise Foreign Currency Denominated Debt?EUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2001Evidence from Finland This study examines the determinants of the decision to raise currency debt. The results suggest that hedging figures importantly in the currency,of,denomination decision: firms in which exports constitute a significant fraction of net sales are more likely to raise currency debt. However, firms also tend to borrow in periods when the nominal interest rate for the loan currency, relative to other currencies, is lower than usual. This is consistent with the currency debt issue decision being affected by speculative motives. Large firms, with a wider access to the international capital markets, are more likely to borrow in foreign currencies than small firms. [source] Does Hedging Affect Firm Value?FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2006Evidence from the US Airline Industry Does hedging add value to the firm, and if so, is the source of the added value consistent with hedging theory? We investigate jet fuel hedging behavior of firms in the US airline industry during 1992,2003 to examine whether such hedging is a source of value for these companies. We illustrate that the investment and financing climate in the airline industry conforms well to the theoretical framework of Froot, Scharfstein, and Stein (1993). In general, airline industry investment opportunities correlate positively with jet fuel costs, while higher fuel costs are consistent with lower cash flow. Given that jet fuel costs are hedgeable, airlines with a desire for expansion may find value in hedging future purchases of jet fuel. Our results show that jet fuel hedging is positively related to airline firm value. The coefficients on the hedging variables in our regression analysis suggest that the "hedging premium" is greater than the 5% documented in Allayannis and Weston (2001), and might be as large as 10%. We find that the positive relation between hedging and value increases in capital investment, and that most of the hedging premium is attributable to the interaction of hedging with investment. This result is consistent with the assertion that the principal benefit of jet fuel hedging by airlines comes from reduction of underinvestment costs. [source] How Theories of Financial Intermediation and Corporate Risk-Management Influence Bank Risk-Taking BehaviorFINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 5 2001Michael S. Pagano This paper examines the rationales for risk-taking and risk-management behavior from both a corporate finance and a banking perspective. After combining the theoretical insights from the corporate finance and banking literatures related to hedging and risk-taking, the paper reviews empirical tests based on these theories to determine which of these theories are best supported by the data. Managerial incentives are the most consistently supported rationale for describing how banks manage risk. In particular, moderate/high levels of equity ownership reduce bank risk while positive amounts of stock option grants increase bank risk-taking behavior. The review of empirical tests in the banking literature also suggests that financial intermediaries coordinate different aspects of risk (e.g., credit and interest rate risk) in order to maintain a certain level of total risk. The empirical results indicate hedgeable risks such as interest rate risk represent only one dimension of the risk-management problem. This implies empirical tests of the theories of corporate risk-management need to consider individual sub-components of total risk and the bank's ability to trade these risks in a competitive financial market. This finding is consistent with the reality that banks have non-zero expected financial distress costs and bank managers cannot fully diversify their bank-related personal investments. [source] Hedging, Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations FrameworkFINANCIAL REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Chen-Miao Lin D84; G31; G32 Abstract We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage. [source] Does Risk Management Add Value?JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 3 2005A Survey of the Evidence The fact that 92% of the world's 500 largest companies recently reported using derivatives suggests that corporate managers believe financial risk management can increase shareholder value. Surveys of finance academics indicate that they too believe that corporate risk management is, on the whole, a valueadding activity. This article provides an overview of almost 30 years of broadbased, stock-market-oriented academic studies that address one or more of the following questions: ,Are interest rate, exchange rate, and commodity price risks reflected in stock price movements? ,Is volatility in corporate earnings and cash flows related in a systematic way to corporate market values? ,Is the corporate use of derivatives associated with reduced risk and higher market values? The answer to the first question, at least in the case of financial institutions and interest rate risk, is a definite yes; all studies with this focus find that the stock returns of financial firms are clearly sensitive to interest rate changes. The stock returns of industrial companies exhibit no pronounced interest rate exposure (at least as a group), but industrial firms with significant cross-border revenues and costs show considerable sensitivity to exchange rates (although such sensitivity actually appears to be reduced by the size and geographical diversity of the largest multinationals). What's more, the corporate use of derivatives to hedge interest rate and currency exposures appears to be associated with lower sensitivity of stock returns to interest rate and FX changes. But does the resulting reduction in price sensitivity affect value,and, if so, how? Consistent with a widely cited theory that risk management increases value by limiting the corporate "underinvestment problem," a number of studies show a correlation between lower cash flow volatility and higher corporate investment and market values. The article also cites a small but growing group of studies that show a strong positive association between derivatives use and stock price performance (typically measured using price-to-book ratios). But perhaps the nearest the research comes to establishing causality are two studies,one of companies that hedge FX exposures and another of airlines' hedging of fuel costs,that show that, in industries where hedging with derivatives is common, companies that hedge outperform companies that don't. [source] COMPETITION AND REGULATION IN THE U.K. ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY (WITH A BRIEF LOOK AT CALIFORNIA)JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 4 2001Stephen C. Littlechild In this article, the U.K.'s Director General of Electricity Supply from 1989 to 1998 assesses the effects of deregulation and competition on the U.K. electricity industry after about a decade. Expansion of existing competitors, new entry, and further restructuring have reduced the aggregate share of the largest two generation companies from nearly 80% to 26%. Efficiency has improved and wholesale prices have fallen after an initial increase. Voluntary bilateral contracts markets are about to replace the mandatory "Pool," with centralised control limited to physically balancing the system and settling contract imbalances. Retail supply competition has been active for large industrial customers since the beginning, and 80% of them now buy from another supplier. The market for residential customers opened in early 1999, and already nearly a quarter of them have chosen another supplier. Incentive price controls on transmission and distribution have stimulated increased efficiency and significantly reduced use-of-system charges. Overall, prices for all classes of customers have fallen by 25,35% in real terms since privatisation, and quality of service has improved. California has adopted a policy that is similar in many respects, but with very different results. The problems there have stemmed partly from less favourable demand and supply conditions, but also from significant policy differences, including barriers to building new capacity, obstacles to the use of long-term supply (or hedging) contracts, retail price controls at untenable levels, and the requirement that (after a transition period) utilities pass through wholesale spot prices directly to their customers. Changes in such policies will eventually enable both producers and consumers in California to benefit from competition. [source] Epigenetic gambling and epigenetic drift as an antagonistic pleiotropic mechanism of agingAGING CELL, Issue 6 2009George M. Martin Summary Generations of biogerontologists have been puzzled by the marked intraspecific variations in lifespan of their experimental model organisms despite all efforts to control both genotype and environment. The most cogent example comes from life table studies of wild-type Caenorhabditis elegans when grown in suspension cultures using axenic media. While nuclear and mitochondrial somatic mutations and ,thermodynamic noise' likely contribute to such lifespan variegations, I raise an additional hypothetical mechanism, one that may have evolved as a mechanism of phenotypic variation which could have preceded the evolution of meiotic recombination. I suggest that random changes in cellular gene expression (cellular epigenetic gambling or bet hedging) evolved as an adaptive mechanism to ensure survival of members of a group in the face of unpredictable environmental challenges. Once activated, it could lead to progressive epigenetic variegation (epigenetic drift) amongst all members of the group. Thus, while particular patterns of gene expression would be adaptive for a subset of reproductive individuals within a population early in life, once initiated, I predict that continued epigenetic drift will result in variable onsets and patterns of pathophysiology , perhaps yet another example of antagonistic pleiotropic gene action in the genesis of senescent phenotypes. The weakness of this hypothesis is that we do not currently have a plausible molecular mechanism for the putative genetic ,randomizer' of epigenetic expression, particularly one whose ,setting' may be responsive to the ecology in which a given species evolves. I offer experimental approaches, however, to search for the elusive epigenetic gambler(s). [source] Handling Weather Related Risks Through the Financial Markets: Considerations of Credit Risk, Basis Risk, and HedgingJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 2 2007Linda L. Golden The profits of many businesses are strongly affected by weather related events, and insurance against weather related risks (acts of God) has been a traditional domain for transfer of (certain) of these risks. Recent innovations in the capital market have now provided financial instruments to transfer and hedge some of these risks. Unlike insurance solutions, however, using these financial derivative instruments creates a situation in which the return to the purchaser of the instrument is no longer perfectly correlated with the loss experienced. Such a mismatch creates new risks which must be examined and evaluated as part of ascertaining cost effective risk management plans. Two newly engendered risks, basis risk (the risk created by the fact that the return from the financial derivative is a function of weather at a prespecified geographical location which may not be identical to the location of the firm) and credit risk (the risk that the counterparty to the derivative contract may not perform), are analyzed in this article. Using custom tailored derivatives from the over the counter market can decrease basis risk, but increases credit risk. Using standardized exchange traded derivatives decreases credit risk but increases basis risk. Here also the effectiveness of using hedging methods involving forwards and futures having linear payoffs (linear hedging) and methods using derivatives having nonlinear payoffs such as those involving options (nonlinear hedging) for the purpose of hedging basis risk are examined jointly with credit risk. [source] To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Managing Demographic Risk in Life Insurance CompaniesJOURNAL OF RISK AND INSURANCE, Issue 1 2006Helmut Gründl Demographic risk, i.e., the risk that life tables change in a nondeterministic way, is a serious threat to the financial stability of an insurance company having underwritten life insurance and annuity business. The inverse influence of changes in mortality laws on the market value of life insurance and annuity liabilities creates natural hedging opportunities. Within a realistically calibrated shareholder value (SHV) maximization framework, we analyze the implications of demographic risk on the optimal risk management mix (equity capital, asset allocation, and product policy) for a limited liability insurance company operating in a market with insolvency-averse insurance buyers. Our results show that the utilization of natural hedging is optimal only if equity is scarce. Otherwise, hedging can even destroy SHV. A sensitivity analysis shows that a misspecification of demographic risk has severe consequences for both the insurer and the insured. This result highlights the importance of further research in the field of demographic risk. [source] THE COST OF ILLIQUIDITY AND ITS EFFECTS ON HEDGINGMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 4 2010L. C. G. Rogers Though liquidity is commonly believed to be a major effect in financial markets, there appears to be no consensus definition of what it is or how it is to be measured. In this paper, we understand liquidity as a nonlinear transaction cost incurred as a function of rate of change of portfolio. Using this definition, we obtain the optimal hedging policy for the hedging of a call option in a Black-Scholes model. This is a more challenging question than the more common studies of optimal strategy for liquidating an initial position, because our goal requires us to match a random final value. The solution we obtain reduces in the case of quadratic loss to the solution of three partial differential equations of Black-Scholes type, one of them nonlinear. [source] HEDGING STRATEGIES AND MINIMAL VARIANCE PORTFOLIOS FOR EUROPEAN AND EXOTIC OPTIONS IN A LÉVY MARKETMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 4 2010Wing Yan Yip This paper presents hedging strategies for European and exotic options in a Lévy market. By applying Taylor's theorem, dynamic hedging portfolios are constructed under different market assumptions, such as the existence of power jump assets or moment swaps. In the case of European options or baskets of European options, static hedging is implemented. It is shown that perfect hedging can be achieved. Delta and gamma hedging strategies are extended to higher moment hedging by investing in other traded derivatives depending on the same underlying asset. This development is of practical importance as such other derivatives might be readily available. Moment swaps or power jump assets are not typically liquidly traded. It is shown how minimal variance portfolios can be used to hedge the higher order terms in a Taylor expansion of the pricing function, investing only in a risk-free bank account, the underlying asset, and potentially variance swaps. The numerical algorithms and performance of the hedging strategies are presented, showing the practical utility of the derived results. [source] MUTUAL FUND PORTFOLIO CHOICE IN THE PRESENCE OF DYNAMIC FLOWSMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2010Julien Hugonnier We analyze the implications of dynamic flows on a mutual fund's portfolio decisions. In our model, myopic investors dynamically allocate capital between a riskless asset and an actively managed fund which charges fraction-of-fund fees. The presence of dynamic flows induces "flow hedging" portfolio distortions on the part of the fund, even though investors are myopic. Our model predicts a positive relationship between a fund's proportional fee rate and its volatility. This is a consequence of higher-fee funds holding more extreme equity positions. Although both the fund portfolio and investors' trading strategies depend on the proportional fee rate, the equilibrium value functions do not. Finally, we show that our results hold even if investors are allowed to directly trade some of the risky securities. [source] PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION WITH DOWNSIDE CONSTRAINTSMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2006Peter Lakner We consider the portfolio optimization problem for an investor whose consumption rate process and terminal wealth are subject to downside constraints. In the standard financial market model that consists of d risky assets and one riskless asset, we assume that the riskless asset earns a constant instantaneous rate of interest, r > 0, and that the risky assets are geometric Brownian motions. The optimal portfolio policy for a wide scale of utility functions is derived explicitly. The gradient operator and the Clark,Ocone formula in Malliavin calculus are used in the derivation of this policy. We show how Malliavin calculus approach can help us get around certain difficulties that arise in using the classical "delta hedging" approach. [source] A General Approach to Hedging Options: Applications to Barrier and Partial Barrier OptionsMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2002Hans-Peter Bermin In this paper we consider a Black and Scholes economy and show how the Malliavin calculus approach can be extended to cover hedging of any square integrable contingent claim. As an application we derive the replicating portfolios of some barrier and partial barrier options. [source] Robust Hedging of Barrier OptionsMATHEMATICAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2001Haydyn Brown This article considers the pricing and hedging of barrier options in a market in which call options are liquidly traded and can be used as hedging instruments. This use of call options means that market preferences and beliefs about the future behavior of the underlying assets are in some sense incorporated into the hedge and do not need to be specified exogenously. Thus we are able to find prices for exotic derivatives which are independent of any model for the underlying asset. For example we do not need to assume that the underlying assets follow an exponential Brownian motion. We find model-independent upper and lower bounds on the prices of knock-in and knock-out puts and calls. If the market prices the barrier options outside these limits then we give simple strategies for generating profits at zero risk. Examples illustrate that the bounds we give can be fairly tight. [source] |