This study concerns the evaluation of alternative pricing strategies involving options on feed grains futures contracts during the period of 1973-1986. To predict the option premiums that would have occurred at various points in this time period, the study did research on market premiums of options on corn futures contracts from March 1, 1985 until December 31, 1985. The research showed that market premiums conformed closely to the premiums estimated by Black model of options pricing. The generalized stochastic dominance with absolute risk aversion function intervals is applied in the study in order to evaluate the strategies. The results showed that under different risk preferences, (DARA and CARA), the commodity options strategies dominate the cash sale strategy, but do not dominate the hedging by selling futures contract strategy. Options may provide alternatives for feed grains producers and traders. Put (call) options provided protection from losses resulting from falling (raising) cash price and may somtimes raise average income/margin of feed grain producers and traders.

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Despite the popularity of Vietnamese cuisine in Toronto, there is limited understanding of how this culinary cuisine is socially constructed through its consumption and production. This thesis research examines the production of Toronto’s Vietnamese culinary landscape with the aim of unpacking the discursive power relations between consumers’ and purveyors’ construction of authenticity through the processes of racialization. It also highlights the identities created through racialized consumption and production practices, and how such identity constructions are constitutive of Vietnamese culinary culture. To this aim, consumers were surveyed and in-depth interviews were conducted with owners and managers. Results from the fieldwork process demonstrated that both consumers and producers construct authenticity and images of Vietnamese culture for their own benefits but had different, and sometimes confounding, understandings of how such constructions are interpreted and practiced. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-17 12:11:36.198

This thesis explores a selection of the ways in which an era of high mineral commodity prices - commonly dubbed the 'super-cycle' of the 2000s - is reshaping the map of global commodity markets. It pursues this agenda through three research aims: (1) to recast the relationship between geophysical resource supply, prices, and markets; (2) to examine some of the institutions that channel and benefit from resource wealth; and (3) to 'open the black box' of the commodity price formation process. The thesis pursues this agenda through four substantive papers, each with its own set of research objectives and findings, and primarily uses the example of phosphate as a vehicle for discussion. The first half of the thesis focuses on the production side of commodity markets. It begins by exploring the multidimensional nature of the concept of resource scarcity, both in its geophysical and socioeconomic aspects, by interrogating a prominent inherited conception of natural resource scarcity: 'peak' natural resources, specifically peak phosphorus discourses (chapter 3). The thesis then carries on the research agenda suggested by this initial study by conducting a field research-based case study of the little-known Moroccan state-owned phosphate mining and fertilizer company, OCP Group (chapter 4). It explores the particular type of principal-agent problem in generating and distributing national resource wealth that national extractive companies (NECs) such as OCP face. The second substantive half of the thesis is concerned with global commodity trading and price formation. It constructs an 'anatomy' of global phosphate markets in order to shed light on the phosphate price formation process (chapter 5). Based on this investigation, the thesis argues that despite the opacity of the processes by which phosphate is priced, an apparent lack of a 'benchmark' or reference price is not necessarily as problematic as market theorists might assume. Finally, the thesis takes a macro-level perspective of the relationship between finance and physical commodity trade by examining the role of financial trading in the governance of commodity markets (chapter 6). Overall the thesis distils the following findings. To begin with, a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the concept of resource scarcity puts short-term price movements as indicators of resource availability into perspective while revealing an unforeseen degree of complexity, as well as certain 'blind spots', in the geopolitical and institutional aspects of resource supply and trading. Second, the power of two particular, less-researched types of institutions that channel and benefit from resource wealth - names, national extractive companies and financial investors - is both less great and different in nature than is commonly assumed. Third, for institutional as well as geographic reasons that are specific to different types of commodities, the commodity price formation process is even further from the joint ideals of market transparency and liquidity than is commonly assumed. Finally, insofar as commodity production and trade can be conceived as part of the 'real economy', it cannot succumb to what is widely feared as the hegemony of 'financial logic'.

The objective of the thesis is to analyze the copper futures market in London Metal Exchange (LME) and to recommend appropriate hedging strategy in copper futures market to the Erdenet Mining Corporation in Mongolia. It uses daily official settlement copper prices of LME in the spot and 3 month futures markets from 2000-2014. Initially, we use cointegration test and ECM to investigate the copper market efficiency. Then OLS, ECM, GARCH, EGARCH and ECM-GARCH models are employed to compute different optimum hedge ratios. Finally, the hedge effectiveness is measured based on minimization of the value of AIC and SBIC. Our result indicate that copper futures market is inefficient. Hedge effectiveness comparison concludes that ECM model gives the best hedging performance. However, ECM-GARCH is accounted to be the best model for hedging strategy since it captures the time-varying conditional heteroscedasticity to ECM model. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / In recent years, the agricultural markets have been subject to increased prices and unusual levels of elevated volatility. One likely driver of this is the mandated ethanol expansion in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Previous research has identified relationships in market prices and variability between the energy and grain markets, but little has been done to evaluate volatility spillover across a broader spectrum of agricultural commodities. Additionally, few studies have assessed causal linkages across market implied volatilities. This research examines implied volatility spillover in futures markets across major agricultural commodities and energies. The analysis also determines the time path and magnitude of volatility translation across the markets and compares the causal relationships between pre-ethanol boom and post-ethanol boom time periods. Granger causality tests are conducted using multivariate and bivariate vector autoregressive modeling techniques, and impulse response functions are employed to obtain time paths of the reactions. Overall, results indicate that strong implied volatility spillover relationships exist between the grain markets and between the live cattle and feeder cattle markets. The analysis also finds that the agricultural markets have evolved from lean hogs being the primary volatility leader in the pre-ethanol boom era to corn being the primary volatility leader in the post-ethanol boom era. Despite a high correlation between crude oil and corn volatilities in the post-ethanol boom time period, the causal linkage between the two commodities’ volatilities may not be as definite as other literature suggests.

This study examines the marketing strategies employed by vendors at the Westwego shrimp lot in Westwego, Louisiana. Given the fluctuating market conditions and rising costs of seafood production, seafood vendors in the Gulf Coast region must look continuously for new ways to market their product as a cultural commodity. This thesis argues that shrimp becomes a cultural commodity at the Westwego shrimp lot, and that through marketing strategies, vendors at the Westwego shrimp lot both resist and accept certain aspects of globalization. The presence of imports, a presence that emerges in the context of globalization, poses a large threat to the industry‟s survival. Vendors both consciously and unconsciously market shrimp as food and symbol. An analysis of their efforts may contribute to understanding the process of cultural commodification.

In long term well-diversified portfolio of commodities is not only profitable as well as a portfolio of stocks, but they are also slightly less risky. Profitability of the portfolio of commodities is negatively correlated with the return of the portfolio of stocks and bonds. This means that commodities are effective in diversifying equity and bond portfolios. And since this yields negative correlation increases with the length of time. The benefits of diversification are greater the longer they are used. Not only that, since the return of the portfolio of commodities depends positively with inflation, commodities are the most appropriate group of assets to protect against inflation.

ABSTRACT: This research report follows the journey of the South African film Hijack Stories (2000) in translation, looking at the various processes – state, institutional and individual - which led to the film’s existence. The context of the South African film industry (institution) during the country’s (state) apartheid past and democratic present have influenced those involved (the individuals) in the film-making process as well as their subjectivities. It is revealed that Hijack Stories (2000) is a film targeted at foreign audiences and that these audiences ascribe value to South African content. This value is acquired on the basis of the historical and social circumstances of South Africa, which has long sustained the interest of the outside world. Hijack Stories (2000) emerges as a cultural commodity, packaged and marketed according to the imaginings that the world has of South Africa. Translation then takes place at the junction of these processes and their related social, financial, political and historical factors, thereby facilitating the international circulation of Hijack Stories (2000) within the greater context of globalisation.

This write-up is submitted in partial fulfilment of the Master of Management Degree in Finance and Investments Degree. / Growth in commodity exporting economies, such as South Africa, is highly dependent on the revenue generated from exports. It is thus evident that as commodity prices fluctuate, income and the balance of payments will be accordingly impacted. This is further exacerbated by strong dependence on the imports of certain commodities. Oil is one such commodity on whose imports South Africa is highly dependent. Although natural gas is also imported, it is in lower quantities and is as such expected to impact South Africa to a lower extent. Coal, on the other hand, is among the main commodity exports and was expected to have an impact on (and be impacted by) South African macroeconomic fundamentals. In this study, we use a VECM and MGARCH model to test the interaction between South African macroeconomic variables and these three commodities. Our VECM findings indicate that oil and exchange rates are inflationary. This implies that an increase in oil prices and/or exchange rates (indicating a depreciation of the Rand against the U.S. Dollar) results in an increase in inflation. Inflation, on the other hand, propagates higher coal prices and to a lesser extent, higher interest rates. We account the latter to South Africa’s inflation targeting regime and the former to demand and supply dynamics which occur at RBCT as production costs increase (short-term coal export contracts and spot market sales). Natural gas is found to have weak impacts on interest rates and exchange rates. Our MGARCH model shows that only the innovations in natural gas and oil prices spillover into interest rates and exchange rate. There is no direct spillover captured. However, there is strong direct spillover from oil to inflation. Lastly, interest rates are found to have a strong direct volatility spillover to both oil and natural gas. We attribute this to the exchange rate impact that interest rates have and is supported by the exchange rate impact on commodity price volatility. We conclude that an in-depth understanding of triggers is pertinent for monetary and fiscal policy decisions in South Africa. Although the South African economy is relatively diversified compared to other developing countries, commodity price fluctuations do have a significant impact on economic performance. / MT2017