Prolonged imbalances between feeder cattle costs and the pricing opportunities being offered cause highly variable placements of cattle into feedlots and variability in fed cattle prices. Such variability imposes costs on everyone in the system, from producer to consumer. Cattle feeders are in a position to exert the influence of very current and highly specific information on costs of feeding into trading levels for live cattle and feeder cattle futures. The tax treatment of speculative trades in the cattle futures markets has the potential to block participation of cattle feeders. To the extent that cattle feeders are effectively blocked from trading in futures in any capacity other than trades that meet the IRS "equal and opposite" criterion of a hedge, the correction of market imbalances may be impended. The economic viability of investments in cattle feeding can be influenced in a significant way by those market imbalances. This research examines the interaction of traders in the risk transfer and price discovery process in the live cattle markets. Econometric models over disaggregated data sets were developed to explain expected margin behavior in response to the changes in the positions held by identifiable and specific trader groups. In addition, trader behavior reactions to the levels of the feeding margins offered by the distant live cattle futures were examined. A weekly data series was constructed using the daily records of reporting trader positions in the live cattle futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Feeding margins offered by the futures were calculated using cash prices for feeder cattle and feed fixed at the time of placements of feeder cattle on feed. The analysis was for the 1983-1987 period. The analysis indicates that increases in large, long (short) trading activity were associated with increases (decreases) in the expected margin offered by the futures. More importantly, the behavior of large speculators were found to exert a constraining influence on margin changes and to start the market correction at extreme levels of negative margins. This implies that cattle feeders, trading as large traders, could contribute to correcting the market imbalances if they were allowed to fully participate in the price discovery process. / Master of Science

by Wong Man Kit, Andy, Yu Miu Ki. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-54). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.iii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Credit Risk --- p.2 / Operational risk --- p.3 / Liquidity risk --- p.3 / Legal risk --- p.3 / Market Risk --- p.3 / Model risk --- p.4 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.5 / Value at Risk (VaR) --- p.5 / Minimum Variance --- p.7 / Dollar equivalence --- p.8 / Statistical Hedging --- p.8 / Risk and Return in an Imperfect Hedge --- p.8 / Expected return and standard deviation in a hedged position --- p.9 / Risk and Return in an actual hedge --- p.11 / Optimal Hedge Ratio --- p.13 / Deriving Optimal Hedge Ratio h* --- p.15 / Computing the minimum risk hedge ratio by regression --- p.16 / Basis Risk --- p.18 / Sources of Basis Risk --- p.19 / Variation in the equilibrium price relationship between cash and futures --- p.19 / "Random ""noise"" in the price process" --- p.19 / Mismatch between cash position and the underlying for the future --- p.20 / Hedging Effectiveness --- p.21 / Chapter III. --- DATA AND METHODOLOGY --- p.25 / Data --- p.25 / Data Collection --- p.25 / Data Selection --- p.25 / Data Manipulation --- p.26 / Methodology --- p.27 / Part I: The Selection of the Portfolios --- p.27 / Part II: The Determination of the Hedge Ratio --- p.28 / Part III: Hedged vs. Unhedged --- p.29 / Part IV: Data Analysis & Comparison --- p.31 / Chapter IV. --- FINDINGS --- p.35 / High volatility of Hong Kong market --- p.35 / Manipulation of institutional investors --- p.36 / Hong Kong financial market are less mature --- p.36 / Less efficient information flow --- p.37 / Less Sophisticated Investors --- p.38 / Results and Discussion --- p.39 / Empirical Results --- p.40 / Explanation for the differences --- p.42 / Limitations --- p.47 / Learning Period --- p.47 / Cross Hedging --- p.47 / Mismatch between the futures and the underlying index --- p.48 / Missing Stock Data in the S&P500 --- p.49 / Chapter V. --- CONCLUSION --- p.50 / Tradeoff between risk and return --- p.50 / Hedge Effectiveness --- p.51 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.53

This paper presents a case study of developing foreign currency trading strategies for trading operations for a multi-million dollar company that sells analytical products and services to European countries. The analysis provides a general framework for managing currency risk exposures for U.S. Multinational companies.