Practice investment management pim3 ch17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE ROLE OF
DERIVATIVE ASSETS

Practical Investment Management
Robert A. Strong


Outline
 Background
 The Rationale for Derivative Assets
 Uses of Derivatives

 The Options Market






Options Terminology
The Financial Page Listing
The Origin of an Option
The Role of the Options Clearing Corporation
Standardized Option Characteristics

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Outline
 The Futures Market



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Futures vs. Options
Market Participants
Keeping the Promise
Categories of Futures Contracts

 Financial Futures
 Stock Index Futures
 Interest Rate Futures
 Foreign Currency Futures

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Outline
 Derivative Assets and the News
 Current Events
 Risk of Derivative Assets
 Listed vs. Over-the-Counter Derivatives

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Introduction
 Derivative assets get their name from the
fact that their value derives from some
other asset.
 The best-known derivative assets are
futures and options contracts.
 Derivatives are not all the same. Some are
inherently speculative, while some are
highly conservative.

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Background :
The Rationale for Derivative Assets


The first organized derivatives
exchange in the United States
was developed in order to bring
stability to agricultural prices, by
enabling farmers to eliminate or
reduce their price risk.

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Background : Uses of Derivatives
 Risk management : The equity manager’s
market risk or the bond manager’s interest
rate risk is analogous to the farmer’s price
risk.
 Risk transfer : Derivatives provide a means
for risk to be transferred from one person
to some other market participant who, for a
price, is willing to bear it.
 Derivatives may provide financial leverage.

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Background : Uses of Derivatives
 Income generation : Some people use
derivatives as a means of generating
additional income from their investment
portfolio.
 Financial engineering : Derivatives can be
stable or volatile depending on how they
are combined with other assets.
 What’s next?

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Background : Uses of Derivatives

Insert Figure 17-1 here.

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Options Terminology
 A call option gives its owner the right to
buy a specified quantity of the underlying
asset at a set price within a set time period.
 A put option gives its owner the right to sell
a specified quantity of the underlying asset
at a set price within a set time period.
 The set price is called the striking price or
exercise price, and the last day the option
is valid is called the expiration date.
 The price of the option is the premium.
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Options Terminology
 Options trade in units called contracts, each
of which normally covers 100 shares.
 An option’s volume indicates how many
option contracts changed hands over some
period of time. It measures trading activity.
 An option’s open interest indicates how many
option contracts exist.
 Open interest goes up when someone creates an
option and does down when two people trade and
each close out an options position.

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Options Terminology
 The owner of an option will ultimately do
one of three things with it:
 sell it to someone else;
 let it expire; or
 exercise it.

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The Origin of an Option
 Options can be created, or destroyed. The
quantity of options in existence changes
everyday.
 The first trade someone makes in a
particular option is called an opening
transaction. If an investor sells an option as
an opening transaction, it is called writing
the option.
 Options are fungible, meaning that, for a
given company, all options of the same type
with the same expiration and striking price
are identical.
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The Role of the Options Clearing Corporation


The Options Clearing Corporation positions
itself between every buyer and seller and acts
as a guarantor of all option trades.
OCC

Buyer

Trading Floor

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Seller
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Standardized Option Characteristics
 Options have standardized expiration dates,
striking prices, and lot size.
 option premium = intrinsic value + time value
 If an option has no intrinsic value, it is out-ofthe-money. Otherwise, it is either in-themoney or at-the-money.

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Standardized Option Characteristics

Components of an Option Premium

Intrinsic
Value

+

Time Value

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=

Option
Premium

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Standardized Option Characteristics
 An American option can be exercised
anytime prior to the expiration of the option.
A European option, on the other hand, can
only be exercised at expiration.
 The option holder decides if and when to
exercise.
 Valuable options are usually sold rather than
exercised.

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Standardized Option Characteristics

Fig 17-4 here

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The Futures Market
 A futures contract is a promise.
 The initial seller of the contract promises to
deliver a quantity of a standardized commodity
to a designated delivery point during a certain
delivery month.
 The other party to the trade promises to pay a
predetermined price for the goods upon
delivery.
 The person who promises to buy is said to be
long, while the person who promises to deliver
is said to be short.
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The Futures Market
 Futures vs. options : Futures contracts do
not expire unexercised. Note that the
contract obligation may be satisfied by
making an offsetting trade.
 Market participants :
 Hedgers use futures to reduce price risk.
 Speculators assume risk in the hope of
making a profit.
 Marketmakers provide liquidity for the
marketplace.

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The Futures Market

Insert Figure 17-5 here.

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The Futures Market
 Keeping the promise : Each exchange has a
Clearing Corporation which ensures the
integrity of the futures contract when a
member is in financial distress.
 Categories of futures contracts :
 Agricultural e.g. wheat, cotton, cattle.
 Metals and petroleum e.g. platinum,
copper, natural gas, crude oil.
 Financial e.g. foreign currency, stock
index, interest rate.
 Others e.g. electricity, catastrophe, swap.
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Financial Futures : Stock Index Futures
 A stock index future is a promise to buy or
sell the standardized units of a specific
index at a fixed price at a predetermined
future date.
 Unlike most other commodity contracts,
there is no actual delivery mechanism
when the contract expires. For practicality,
all settlements are in cash.

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Financial Futures : Stock Index Futures

Insert Table 17-2 here.

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Financial Futures : Interest Rate Futures
 Interest rate futures contracts are
customarily grouped into short-term,
intermediate-term, and long-term
categories.

 The two principal short-term contracts are
Eurodollars and U.S. Treasury bills.
 The Treasury bill futures contract calls for
the delivery of $1 million par value of 90day T-bills on the delivery date of the
futures contract.
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