In the past decades, real estate has turned into something more than just a home, it has become an investment. The interest to invest in the real estate market has increased from investors but also from private persons where the demand not only is to find a living but also perceived as an investment to make a profit or reinvest in the future.  The demand on the Swiss real estate market has increased from locals but also foreigners that want to invest in the stable and safe Swiss market. The high demand has increased the housing prices, which has raised even faster than the wages, and in turn, limit the possibilities to participate in the Swiss real estate market. It has made people less able to afford to buy a home, and many are forced to take from their pension funds to be able to pay the 20% of required deposit. This creates a risk for the future and puts not only the citizens but also the banks in large default risks since there does not exist an insurance if a price fall would occur on the Swiss market.  Many people mitigate the risks by diversification by investing in different assets in the derivative market. The market has seen a trend towards the technology development, which makes it possible to create more creative innovations at the derivative market. The increased interest in real estate and the accessibility of derivate products have led to a demand for real estate in derivatives.  This study investigates the possibilities to incorporate real estate within the derivative market, more specific within futures contracts. Futures contracts are standardized contracts between two parts that agree to buy/sell an asset at a future date and price. Real estate in futures is supposed to work in the same way, and to work as an insurance for possible price fall on the market since it can hedge the market by reducing price fluctuations, or as an alternative way to speculate within the real estate market to increase income. Real estate in futures could, in turn, allow a broader target group to participate in the real estate market since it would be a cheaper, easier and faster alternative to investing in than the physical real estate market.  The thesis confirms that there is a demand on the Swiss market for an alternative way to invest in real estate. However, the thesis discovers several difficulties with creating the product that should be managed. The thesis examining the subject together with the Swiss leader in online trading, the bank Swissquote. With their expertise in technology, Swissquote has an advantage when creating the product REF. / Under de senaste årtiondena har fastigheter blivit mer än bara ett hem, det har även blivit en investering. Intresset att investera i fastighetsmarknaden har ökat från investerare men även från privatpersoner där efterfrågan inte endast är att köpa en fastighet för att bo i, utan som även ska fungera som en investering för att möjliggöra en vinst eller återinvestera i framtiden. Efterfrågan på den schweiziska fastighetsmarknaden har ökat från lokalbefolkningen men även från utlänningar som vill investera i den stabila och säkra schweiziska marknaden. Den höga efterfrågan har ökat bostadspriserna mer än vad lönerna ökar, vilket minskar möjligheterna att delta i den schweiziska fastighetsmarknaden. Detta då människor inte har råd att köpa ett hem för endast sina löner, många är även tvungna att ta från sina pensionsfonder för att kunna betala handpenningen på 20%. Detta har skapat en risk för framtiden, och sätter inte bara medborgarna utan även bankerna i stora risker eftersom det inte finns någon försäkring mot ett prisfall på den schweiziska marknaden. Många mildrar riskerna genom diversifiering i olika tillgångar på derivatmarknaden. Teknologi trenden har gjort det möjligt att skapa mer kreativa innovationer på derivatmarknaden. Intresset för fastigheter och den ökade utbudet av derivatprodukter har lett till en efterfrågan på just fastigheter i derivatprodukter. Denna studie undersöker möjligheterna att införa fastigheter inom derivatmarknaden, mer specifikt inom futures. Futures kontrakt är standardiserade kontrakt mellan två parter som kommer överens om att köpa/sälja en tillgång på ett framtida datum och pris. Fastigheter i futures kan fungera på samma sätt, och det kan fungera som en försäkring för eventuellt prisfall på marknaden eftersom det kan säkra marknaden genom att minska prisfluktuationer, eller som ett alternativ för att spekulera på fastighetsmarknaden för att öka intäkterna. Fastigheter i futures kan även tillåta en bredare målgrupp att delta på fastighetsmarknaden eftersom det skulle vara ett billigare, enklare och snabbare alternativ att investera än på den fysiska fastighetsmarknaden. Studien bekräftar att det finns en efterfrågan i Schweiz för ett alternativt sätt att investera på fastighetsmarknaden. Den upptäcker dock flera svårigheter med att skapa produkten. Studien undersöker ämnet tillsammans med den schweiziskt ledande online banken Swissquote. Med en expertis inom teknik besitter Swissquote en fördel med att skapa produkten REF.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Kevin C. Dhuyvetter / The 2008 National Stocker Survey defines the backgrounding/stocking of cattle as ―operations where calves are grown after weaning and/or preconditioning but before the feedlot. This includes calves purchased for this purpose as well as those retained by cow-calf producers post-weaning, but before marketing or retention through the feedlot. Backgrounding offers many benefits to farmers including, but not limited to, adding value to their feedstuffs—hay, grain, etc.—by feeding it to their cattle and potentially spreading risk by increasing marketing time or engaging in contracts with feedlots. However, producers also take on increased costs as it takes more time to wean, bunk-train, vaccinate, etc. compared to other operations in the cattle industry. This thesis attempts to analyze two studies using the 2008 National Stocker Survey. The first is how producer and operation characteristics—producer age, type of operation, income derived from backgrounding—relate to why producers find variables such as cattle prices, animal health management, marketing practices, and nutrition important. The second is how producer and operation characteristics relate to producers that use futures market contracts and options on futures. Binary and ordered logit models were used to find the statistical significance of the aforementioned studies.Since this survey was specifically designed to profile the stocking/backgrounding industry, some of the estimated models did not add a lot of value beyond the summary statistics for the various dependent variables. That is, the ordered logit models did not identify any strong relationships given that almost all of the producers that responded to these questions found feeder cattle prices, animal health management, marketing practices, and nutrition very important, which can be seen by analyzing the summary statistics. In addition, the binary logit models that were used for the futures market contract and options on futures models, found that the best way to pinpoint producers using either futures contracts or options was if producers were already using risk management strategies. Therefore, the survey’s purpose of profiling the stocker industry may be its best use.

In this thesis, we analyze new possibilities in predicting daily ranges, i.e. the differences between daily high and low prices. The main focus of our work lies in investigating how models commonly used for daily ranges modeling can be enhanced to provide better forecasts. In this respect, we explore the added benefit of using more efficient volatility measures as predictors of daily ranges. Volatility measures considered in this work include realized measures of variance (realized range, realized variance) and range-based volatility measures (Parkinson, Garman & Klass, Rogers & Satchell, etc). As a subtask, we empirically assess efficiency gains in volatility estimation when using range-based estimators as opposed to simple daily ranges. As another venue of research in this work, we analyze the added benefit of slicing the trading day into different sessions based on trading activity (e.g. Asian, European and American session). In this setting we analyze whether whole-day volatility measures reliably aggregate information coming from all trading sessions. We are led by intuition that different sessions exhibit significantly different characteristics due to different order book thicknesses and trading activity in general. Thus these sessions are expected to provide valuable information concealed in...

O trabalho analisou o impacto da introdução dos contratos futuros agropecuários (de café arábica, soja, milho, açúcar cristal, etanol e boi gordo), negociados na Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias e Futuros - BM&FBOVESPA, no risco e no retorno de uma carteira diversificada, composta por ações, títulos, ouro e dólar, entre agosto de 1994 e dezembro de 2007, sendo realizados estudos para o intervalo de tempo completo e para subdivisões de dois e três períodos, além de uma análise bianual. Foram consideradas diferentes estratégias com tais derivativos: posições estáticas (comprada ou vendida em contratos de primeiro vencimento ou de vencimentos superiores a seis meses), dinâmicas (com a utilização de médias móveis para se definir pela compra ou venda dos papéis em questão) e a partir de fundos de investimentos nacionais, que utilizam estes títulos em seus portfólios. Buscou-se ainda mensurar como a utilidade dos investidores foi alterada, considerando as composições ótimas da carteira e diferentes graus de aversão ao risco de tais agentes. Com o uso da Teoria do Portfólio, verificou-se que: a) as estratégias estáticas de compra e de venda de futuros sobre commodities elevaram a performance da carteira diversificada quando realizada análise bianual e para os períodos 1994-1998 e 1999-2003 em alguns casos, observou-se redução no risco da carteira de até 70%, para certos níveis de retorno; b) a utilização destes derivativos em estratégias dinâmicas, baseadas em médias móveis, teve, em geral, impacto positivo na performance frente aos resultados da carteira original e daquela em que se introduziram posições estáticas; c) a introdução dos fundos de investimento Sparta e Guepardo, caracterizados pela utilização de derivativos agropecuários e pela adoção de uma gestão dinâmica, também elevou significativamente o desempenho do portfólio diversificado além de aumentar consideravelmente o retorno médio da carteira, constataram-se reduções de risco para certas faixas de rentabilidade de até 40%; d) os derivativos sobre commodities estiveram presentes em praticamente todas as carteiras que maximizaram a utilidade dos agentes (exceto para o período completo e entre 1994-2000) em geral, à medida que a aversão ao risco do investidor se elevava, a participação destes papéis no portfólio decrescia. Concluiu-se, portanto, que os derivativos sobre commodities, negociados na BM&FBOVESPA, constituíram-se em instrumentos capazes de elevar a performance de uma carteira diversificada para vários dos subperíodos considerados no estudo. Em geral, os maiores benefícios da introdução destes ativos no portfólio ocorreram em períodos relativamente mais curtos (biênios), dado o caráter cíclico dos preços dos produtos agropecuários. Além disso, os resultados apontam que o uso de análises técnicas e fundamentalistas pode elevar ainda mais o desempenho das carteiras que incluem posições compradas ou vendidas estáticas em futuros sobre commodities, já que a inserção de estratégias, que utilizaram simples instrumentos de análise técnica para definição do tipo de posições a assumir, e de fundos de commodities foi capaz de elevar significativamente a performance do investimento. / The work has analyzed the impact of including commodity futures (arabica coffee, soybean, corn, crystal sugar, ethanol and live cattle), negotiated at Securities, Commodity and Futures Exchange - BM&FBOVESPA, in the performance of a diversified portfolio, composed by stocks, bonds, gold and dollar, between August of 1994 and December of 2007, when were studied the complete time break and subdivisions of two and three periods, adding a biannual analysis. Different strategies with these derivatives were considered: i) passive positions - buy and hold or sell and hold contracts of first settlement or that took six months to maturity; ii) active positions for which ones there were used a trend technical rule to determine whether a futures contract should be held as a long or short position; iii) commodity futures funds. It was also aimed to measure how investors utility was modified, considering the optimal portfolios and different levels of risk aversion. Using the Portfolio Theory, it was verified that: a) the passive strategies enhanced the portfolio performance when were considered biannual analysis and over the time periods 1994-1998 and 1999-2003 in some cases, it was noticed reduction of 70% in the portfolio risk, for some levels of return; b) the use of these derivatives in active strategies, based on a trend rule, had, in general, positive impact in performance before the results of original portfolio and that ones in which there were introduced passive positions; c) the addition of Sparta and Guepardo funds, characterized by the use of commodity futures and by the adoption of a dynamic management, improved the diversified portfolio performance; d) the commodity futures were present in almost all portfolios that maximized the investors utility (except for the complete period between 1994-2000) in general, as the risk aversion increased, the participation of these papers in the portfolio decreased. Therefore, it was concluded that commodity futures, negotiated in BM&FBOVESPA, were constituted in instruments able to improve the portfolio performance for many of the sub-periods considered in the study. In general, the benefits of these introduction occurred in shorter periods (biennium), considering the cyclical character of agricultural commodity prices. Besides that, the results show that the use of technical and fundamentalist analysis can improve the performance of the portfolios that include passive positions in commodity futures, since the addition of strategies based on simple technical analysis and of commodity funds was able to improve the performance investment significantly.

Neste artigo, avaliamos o prêmio de risco implícito incorporado nos preços futuros de soja através de um modelo de dois fatore bem conhecido na literatura de commodities. Como os preços da soja na última década têm flutuado muito, primeiro examinamos as quebras estruturais na variância/volatilidade para obter uma proxy para as mudanças nos prêmios de risco. Em seguida, calibramos o modelo de dois fatores em cada subperíodo de toda a série de acordo com as quebras encontradas. Em seqüência, calculamos o prêmio de risco implícito pelo modelo. Constatamos que o prêmio de risco é variável no tempo, não apenas no sinal, mas também na magnitude. Além disso, quando os preços estavam subindo, a posição dominante era dos produtores protegendo-se com um prêmio de risco positivo, enquanto quando os preços estavam caíndo, consumidores se protegiam com um prémio de risco negativo. / In this paper we evaluate the implied risk premium embedded in soybean future prices through a well-known two-factor model in the commodity literature. Since soybean prices in the past decade have fluctuated greatly, we first examine the structural breaks in variance/volatility to obtain a proxy for risk premiums changes. Then we calibrate the two-factor model in each sub-period of the entire series according to the breaks found. In sequence we compute the risk premium implied by the model. We find that the risk premium is time-varying, not only in sign but also in magnitude. Furthermore, when prices were rising prevailing position was of producers hedging with a positive risk premium, while when prices were falling consumers hedged with a negative risk premium.

In today’s world economy, many companies produce where it is most cost effective to produce goods, sell where it is most profitable and source capital where it is cheaper than anywhere else, without worrying about national boundaries. However, this stage were the world has reached began three decades ago with the freeing of exchange rate, capital and interest rate controls. Additional business risks have arisen as a result of this free world and they are such that interest and exchange rates have become more variable requiring innovative financial products to help companies manage these business risks. Companies can now buy financial derivatives to help manage their exposure to variable exchange rates. As such it was the purpose of this paper to assess the effectiveness of exchange traded currency futures contracts in managing exposure to exchange rates. This was to be achieved through answering two research questions (1) how successful are exchange traded futures derivatives and (2) what is the significance of these success rates. The study established that futures contracts with maturity in three, six and nine-months have 52%, 72% and 45% success rates respectively and however only the three month success rate was confirmed by hypothesis tests.

Este trabalho testa a validade da Hipótese das Expectativas, segundo a qual as taxas de juros de longo prazo são formadas pela média das expectativas sobre as taxas de curto prazo futuras. O estudo baseia-se em dois artigos reconhecidos internacionalmente: Fama e Bliss (1987) e Cochrane e Piazzesi (2005). Os testes são realizados utilizando-se retornos em excesso e taxas forward mensais para títulos com prazo de vencimento entre dois e cinco anos. A base de dados consiste em observações mensais da taxa à vista de contratos futuros de DI. Os resultados apontam para a rejeição da HE para o caso brasileiro. Uma combinação linear de taxas forward é capaz de explicar a variação dos retornos em excesso com R² de até 0,63 para um título com maturidade em dois anos. / This work tests the validity of Expectations Hypothesis (EH), which posts that the long-term rates are an average of future expectations of short-term rates. The study is based on two internationally recognized papers: Fama e Bliss (1987) and Cochrane e Piazzesi (2005). The tests are performed using monthly observations on excess returns and forward rates for 2 to 5 year bonds. The data consists in monthly observations of ID future contracts yields. The results suggest rejection the EH for the Brazilian case. A linear combination of forward rates is able to explain excess returns variation with R² up to 0.63 for 2-year bonds.

Neste artigo, avaliamos o prêmio de risco implícito incorporado nos preços futuros de soja através de um modelo de dois fatore bem conhecido na literatura de commodities. Como os preços da soja na última década têm flutuado muito, primeiro examinamos as quebras estruturais na variância/volatilidade para obter uma proxy para as mudanças nos prêmios de risco. Em seguida, calibramos o modelo de dois fatores em cada subperíodo de toda a série de acordo com as quebras encontradas. Em seqüência, calculamos o prêmio de risco implícito pelo modelo. Constatamos que o prêmio de risco é variável no tempo, não apenas no sinal, mas também na magnitude. Além disso, quando os preços estavam subindo, a posição dominante era dos produtores protegendo-se com um prêmio de risco positivo, enquanto quando os preços estavam caíndo, consumidores se protegiam com um prémio de risco negativo. / In this paper we evaluate the implied risk premium embedded in soybean future prices through a well-known two-factor model in the commodity literature. Since soybean prices in the past decade have fluctuated greatly, we first examine the structural breaks in variance/volatility to obtain a proxy for risk premiums changes. Then we calibrate the two-factor model in each sub-period of the entire series according to the breaks found. In sequence we compute the risk premium implied by the model. We find that the risk premium is time-varying, not only in sign but also in magnitude. Furthermore, when prices were rising prevailing position was of producers hedging with a positive risk premium, while when prices were falling consumers hedged with a negative risk premium.

Neste artigo, avaliamos o prêmio de risco implícito incorporado nos preços futuros de soja através de um modelo de dois fatore bem conhecido na literatura de commodities. Como os preços da soja na última década têm flutuado muito, primeiro examinamos as quebras estruturais na variância/volatilidade para obter uma proxy para as mudanças nos prêmios de risco. Em seguida, calibramos o modelo de dois fatores em cada subperíodo de toda a série de acordo com as quebras encontradas. Em seqüência, calculamos o prêmio de risco implícito pelo modelo. Constatamos que o prêmio de risco é variável no tempo, não apenas no sinal, mas também na magnitude. Além disso, quando os preços estavam subindo, a posição dominante era dos produtores protegendo-se com um prêmio de risco positivo, enquanto quando os preços estavam caíndo, consumidores se protegiam com um prémio de risco negativo. / In this paper we evaluate the implied risk premium embedded in soybean future prices through a well-known two-factor model in the commodity literature. Since soybean prices in the past decade have fluctuated greatly, we first examine the structural breaks in variance/volatility to obtain a proxy for risk premiums changes. Then we calibrate the two-factor model in each sub-period of the entire series according to the breaks found. In sequence we compute the risk premium implied by the model. We find that the risk premium is time-varying, not only in sign but also in magnitude. Furthermore, when prices were rising prevailing position was of producers hedging with a positive risk premium, while when prices were falling consumers hedged with a negative risk premium.

Este trabalho testa a validade da Hipótese das Expectativas, segundo a qual as taxas de juros de longo prazo são formadas pela média das expectativas sobre as taxas de curto prazo futuras. O estudo baseia-se em dois artigos reconhecidos internacionalmente: Fama e Bliss (1987) e Cochrane e Piazzesi (2005). Os testes são realizados utilizando-se retornos em excesso e taxas forward mensais para títulos com prazo de vencimento entre dois e cinco anos. A base de dados consiste em observações mensais da taxa à vista de contratos futuros de DI. Os resultados apontam para a rejeição da HE para o caso brasileiro. Uma combinação linear de taxas forward é capaz de explicar a variação dos retornos em excesso com R² de até 0,63 para um título com maturidade em dois anos. / This work tests the validity of Expectations Hypothesis (EH), which posts that the long-term rates are an average of future expectations of short-term rates. The study is based on two internationally recognized papers: Fama e Bliss (1987) and Cochrane e Piazzesi (2005). The tests are performed using monthly observations on excess returns and forward rates for 2 to 5 year bonds. The data consists in monthly observations of ID future contracts yields. The results suggest rejection the EH for the Brazilian case. A linear combination of forward rates is able to explain excess returns variation with R² up to 0.63 for 2-year bonds.