Derivatives: Futures Contract and Hedge Fund

Introduction to the Financial System Financial Instruments Financial instruments can be: • Equity This is usually through the selling of common shares and/or common stock. It gives the buyer some ownership of the firm and thus, voting power when it comes to electing the board of directors. Debt This is money that is borrowed from someone else. Debt must be repaid at set intervals. Debt can be divided into short and long-term debt. This should follow the matching principle where short-term assets should be funded with short-term debt.

American Barrick is the largest gold producer in North America. The implementation of the gold-hedging program differentiated the firm from other major gold rivals and improved its reserve and financial strength. In 1995, American Barrick ’s latest gold find necessitated the company to determine a new hedge strategy for its gold production.

The derivatives program was reducing risk when the firm was investing in foreign currency futures for the first four months from the implementation date (February 1991 to May 1991). This is seen by the negative correlation of (0.94226594) between the derivative (futures) cash flow and the unhedged cash flow. A purpose of a perfect hedge is to obtain a net of zero or in other words, reduce your risk to nothing not including the cost of the hedge. If a correlation is negative, as it was for the first three

There are lots of methods to solve the changes in foreign currency and interest rates issue, however, derivative financial instruments are the major tunes Nike enterprise has used to tackle this issue. Despite the fact that this approach does not wipe out comprehensively the risk of foreign exchange, Nike enterprise still utilize it to minimize or delay the negative consequences. Specifically, the derivative financial instruments comprise embedded derivatives, interest rate swap, and foreign exchange forwards and options contracts (Nike annual report, 2014).

Give an example of each of the two types of contracts. Explain which type of contract is used in your organization. (If you are not currently employed you can give a hypothetical example or an example from your experience).

Derivative contracts were either negotiated with specific counterparties (over-the-counter) or were standardized contracts executed and traded on an exchange. Negotiated over-the-counter derivatives were comprised of forwards, swaps, and specialized options contracts. Over the counter derivatives can be tailored to meet the customers’ needs with respect to time and quantity and they are not traded in an organized exchange. On the other hand, standardized exchange-traded derivatives consisted of futures and options contracts. Even though over-the-counter derivatives were usually not traded like securities in an exchange, they might be terminated or assigned to an alternative counterparty. Standardized derivatives trade on an exchange and have time and quantity that are fixed.

The bank uses derivatives such as wholesale, funding, other capital market alternatives, and product pricing strategies to manage their interest rate risk (TD 2014, 87).

When Nick Leeson was being promoted on the Singapore branch of the Barings bank, the strategy of the bank was to reduce the risk exposure by using a combination of one short straddle (combination of put / call) and for one long future. Since Nick Leeson used to be a specialist on Future contracts on Nikkei 225 and Japanese 10 years bond and was sure this market would arise.

The definition of "derivatives" is also very wide, and includes options and warrants, whoever they are issued by, as well as rights and interests in respect of listed securities (or other derivatives).

Analyze the derivatives market and determine the use of derivatives to efficiently manage investment risks in an investment portfolio.

Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss company and owns a prestigious position being the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness group (Nestlé, 2016). According to its annual report (2015), this company is exposed to many risks caused by movements in foreign currency exchange rates, interest rate and market prices. The foreign exchange risk comes from transactions and translations of foreign operations in Swiss Francs (CHF). The interest rate risk faces the borrowings at fixed and variable rates. The market price risk comes from commodity price and equity price. The former risk arises from world commodity market for the supplies of coffee, cocoa beans, sugar and others. The later risk arises from the fluctuations of the prices of investments held. (Nestle annual reports, 2015). Thus, financial derivatives instruments are used by this multinational corporation in order to hedge these risks.

Most firms hedge at least some of their risks. Hedging can take two basic forms—namely, natural hedging and hedging by means of derivative instruments. The use of derivatives as hedges has expanded greatly in recent years.

Hedging can be defined as a risk management mechanism or strategy which is used to prevent the chances of incurring losses which arise as a result of fall in prices commodities or currencies. It is a technique which is majorly used by the investors in protecting their capital against the effects of the economic situations such as inflation whereby the investors invests in the high yield financial instruments or take a position to cushion them against such effects (Investopedia, 2012).

Understanding the tax implications of equity derivatives and the application of these instruments for taxable U.S. clients is a challenge worth meeting. Equity derivatives can playa useful role in implementing tax-efficient strategies that maximize after-tax returns. The key is to understand the costs, benefits, and rules for applying each instrument or strategy and then to select the best instrument to accomplish the investor's objectives and minimize the taxes.

In early 1990’s, derivative is rapid growth financial instrument around the American and European markets even the Asia-Pacific region. Barings Bank began to invest in the arising Singapore market in order to become one of the first active bankers in the derivative market. Soon, they owned a seat on the SIMEX. Because of the missing expertise in futures and options, they didn’t activate that seat at first. In March 1992 Barings Bank activated its seat and appointed Nick Leeson, a former Morgan Stanley back office employee, as general manager. He took charge of the settlements and accounting