BU7508 Derivatives Assessment
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BU7508 – Derivatives
Question 1 (20%)
a) Explain why the futures price of a stock (without paying dividend) with price satisfies = ( −) where r is the risk-free rate, and T is the maturing date. Can you use the same arguments to price all other types of futures contracts? Furthermore, if the stock price follows a Geometric Brownian Motion, what is the process followed by the futures price
Interpret your result.
(5 marks)
b) Demonstrate the manner in which the Black-Scholes model is adapted to accommodate European futures options, i.e. the Black’s model for futures options.
(5 marks)
c) Explain the exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) model for estimating volatility from historical data. Explain how to apply the GARCH methodology to derive and forecast an asset’s volatility. Demonstrate how to apply the two methods to estimate volatility of a chosen stock and critically discuss your results.
(5 marks)
d) Discuss an exotic option that was not covered in our class. Give the definition, valuation method, pricing formula, and properties that are different from plain vanilla options.
(5 marks)
Question 2 (20%)
a) With reference to the Black Scholes model, explain the concept of risk neutral valuation. Outline the Monte Carlo valuation procedures. Use the Monte Carlo method to price an option of your own choice, compare the obtained price with the market price, and discuss your results.
(5 marks)
b) Define Value at Risk. Critically discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Value at Risk as a measure of risk. You must choose TWO companies listed on ISEQ, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, or the Exchange of the country where you come from, say Stock A and B. Download a minimum 61 days of price data of the two companies A and B ending February 2021. (1) What is the 99%, 5-day VaR for a 1 million dollar investment in stock A? (2) What is the 99%, 5- day VaR for a 1 million dollar investment in stock B? (3) What is the 99%, 5-day VaR for a 1 million dollar investment in stock A and 1 million dollar investment in stock B? (4) What is the benefit of diversification for the 99% VaR?
(5 marks)
c) On 20 April 2020, the price of one American oil futures contract plunged to
be negative for the first time in history. Explain the reasons behind this and critically discuss its implications on risk management and investment.
(5 marks)
d) Within the Black-Scholes framework, is the following a possible value for a
derivative security D(t) on the underlying asset S(t)?
For all t≥0,
D (t) = S (t)−2r/σ2 . (5 marks)
Question 3 (20%)
a) Outline the mean-variance approach to hedge ratio construction. What are the speculative demand and the hedging demand? Interpret them economically. Compare and contrast it with the minimum variance hedge ratio, and critically discuss its advantages and disadvantages, and its possible extension.
(5 marks)
b) What are volatility smiles, describe the key features of volatility smiles, and why do you think they exist?
(5 marks)
c) What is the implied volatility? Critically review the recent literature on estimation of implied volatility. Explain how the Bisection OR the Newton- Raphson procedure is utilized to calculate the implied volatility of options priced according to the Black-Scholes model. Use market data from an option to calculate its implied volatility using the Bisection OR the Newton- Raphson method.
(5 marks)
d) What is credit risk? Explain the risk-neutral and real-world default probabilities and the difference between them. Which should be used for (i) valuation and (ii) scenario analysis? How are recovery rates usually defined and how is the recovery rate used to approximately calculate default probability?
(5 marks)
Question 4 (20%)
Outline the underpinnings of the Minimum Variance Hedge Ratio approach to the determination of hedge ratios for futures contracts. Illustrate the practical computation of futures hedge ratios for two stock index futures prices. Consider ONE of the following case. Please note to implement your analysis it is necessary to download the futures price series and the corresponding stock
index contracts from DATASTREAM, Bloomberg, Capital I&Q, Yahoo Finance
or others (Please contact Mr. Lennart Baals [email protected], when you face
database issues or data download issues).
i. Basing your analysis on the following paper: Stock index futures hedging: hedge ratio estimation, duration effects, expiration effects and hedge ration stability by Holmes (1996), Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 23(1), pp 63-77 demonstrate how a GARCH procedure can be employed to compute hedge ratios for futures contracts.
ii. Basing your analysis on the following paper by Butterworth and Holmes
(2001) “The Hedging Effectiveness of Stock Index Futures: Evidence for the FTSE-100 and the FTSE-mid250 indexes traded in the UK, Applied Financial Economics, Vol. 11, pp 57-68 demonstrate how an error correction procedure can be employed to compute hedge ratios for futures contracts.
Question 5 (20%)
Consider ONE of the following articles. Briefly document the key elements of the paper, the methodology used in the investigation, provide a commentary on the ramifications of the main findings highlighted in the article, and use the latest market data to replicate the key results and critically discuss them.
i. “Understanding VIX”, by Whaley R. (2009), Journal of Portfolio Management, 35, 98– 105.
ii. “Time series momentum”, by Moskowitz, T., Ooi, Y. H. and Pedersen, L. H.
(2012), Journal of Financial Economics 104, 228-250.
2021-12-28