The standard deviation of monthly changes in the spot price of live cattle is (in cents per pound) 1.5. The standard deviation of monthly changes in the futures price of live cattle for the closest contract is 2. The correlation between the futures price changes and the spot price changes is 0.5. It is now October 15. A beef producer is committed to purchasing 500000 pounds of live cattle on November 15. The producer wants to use the December live-cattle futures contracts to hedge its risk. Each contract is for the delivery of 40000 pounds of cattle. What strategy should the beef producer follow?

The futures price of an asset is currently 80 and the risk-free rate is 4%. A six-month put on the futures with a strike price of 85 is currently worth 6.5. What is the value of a six-month call on the futures with a strike price of 85 if both the put and call are European? What is the range of possible values of the six-month call with a strike price of 85 if both put and call are American? Show all work and briefly discuss.

Suppose that you bought two one-year gold futures contracts when the one-year futures price of gold was US$1,340.30 per troy ounce. You then closed the position at the end of the sixth trading day. The initial margin requirement is US$5,940 per contract, and the maintenance margin requirement is US$5,400 per contract. One contract is for 100 troy ounces of gold. The daily prices on the intervening trading days are shown in the following table. Day Settlement Price 0 1340.30 1 1345.50 2 1339.20 3 1330.60 4 1327.70 5 1337.70 6 1340.60   Assume that you deposit the initial margin and do not withdraw the excess on any given day. Whenever a margin call occurs on Day t, you would make a deposit to bring the balance up to meet the initial margin requirement at the start of trading on Day t+1, i.e., the next day.    b. Fill the appropriate numbers in the blank cells in the following table. (Hint: See solution to Q19 in Lesson 2 Learning…

Hedge May 20th: Producer plans to sell corn in early November. Currently the December corn futures are trading at $4.33. The expected basis is -$0.36. • Does the producer have a long or short cash position? long • To hedge: The producer will sell (buy/sell) Dec corn futures at $4.33/bu. • What is the expected price? $3.97 per bushel Nov. 10th: • The producer must sell (buy/sell) corn locally in the cash market at • . $4.18/bu. To offset their future position, they must buy $4.67/bu. What is the actual basis? -se.49 per bushel · (buy/sell) Dec futures at I What is the realized price for the producer? $3.84 per bushel о Method 1: o Method 2: о The hedge resulted in a realized price of