Download Derivatives

Chapter 9
Derivatives:
Futures, Options,
and Swaps
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Basics: Defining Derivatives
• A derivative is a financial instrument
whose value depends on – is derived from
– the value of some other financial
instrument, called the underlying asset.
• The purpose of derivatives is to transfer
risk from one person or firm to another.
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Forwards and Futures
• A forward, or forward contract, is an
agreement between a buyer and a seller
to exchange a commodity or financial
instrument for a specified amount of cash
on a prearranged future date.
• Because they are customized, they are
very difficult to resell to someone else
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Forwards and Futures
• a future, or a futures contract, is a forward
contract that has been standardized and
sold through an organized exchange
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Forwards and Futures
• A futures contract specifies that the seller –
called the short position – will deliver some
quantity of a commodity or financial instrument
to the buyer – called the long position – on a
specific date called the settlement or delivery
date, for a predetermined price.
• No payments are made initially when the
contract is agreed to. The seller/short position
benefits from declines in the price of the
underlying asset, while the buyer/long position
benefits from increases
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Forwards and Futures
• Instead of making a bilateral arrangement,
the two parties to a futures contract each
make an agreement with a clearing
corporation
• A clearing corporation reduces the risk
buyers and sellers face.
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Forwards and Futures
• Margin Accounts and Marking to Market
• the clearing corporation requires both parties
to a futures contract are required to place a
deposit with the corporation itself.
• This practice is called posting margin in a
margin account.
• The margin deposits serve as a guarantee
that when the contract comes due, the parties
will be able to meet their obligations
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Forwards and Futures
• Hedging and Speculating with Futures
• insure against declines in the value of an
asset.
• Futures contracts are popular tools for
speculation because they are cheap. The fact
is, an investor needs only a relatively small
amount of investment – the margin – to
purchase a futures contract that is worth a
great deal
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Forwards and Futures
• Arbitrage and the Determinants of Futures
Prices
• The practice of simultaneously buying and
selling financial instruments in order to benefit
from temporary price differences is called
arbitrage, and the people who engage in it are
called arbitrageurs.
• the futures price must move in lock step with
the market price of the bond.
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Forwards and Futures
9-10
Options
• Options are agreements between two
parties.
• There is a seller, called an option writer, and a
buyer, called an option holder.
• option writers incur obligations
• option holders obtain rights.
• Two basic options, puts and calls.
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Options
• A call option is the right to buy – “call
away” – a given quantity of an underlying
asset at a predetermined price, called the
strike price, on or before a specific date.
• A put option gives the holder the right but
not the obligation to sell the underlying
asset at a predetermined price on or
before a fixed date.
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Options
• The likelihood that an option will pay off
depends on the volatility, or standard
deviation, of the price of the underlying
asset
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Options
9-15
Swaps
• Interest rate swaps are agreements
between two counterparties to exchange
periodic interest rate payments over some
future period, based on an agreed-upon
amount of principal – what’s called the
notional principal.
• The effect of this agreement is to
transform fixed-rate payments into
floating-rate payments, and vice versa.
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Swaps
• Users of interest-rate swaps
• government debt managers who find longterm fixed-rate bonds cheaper to issue, but
prefer short-term variable-rate obligations for
matching revenues with expenses
• The second group uses interest rate swaps to
reduce the risk generated by commercial
activities
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