Futures and Forwards

Task
In this assignment, you will solve problems on hedging with futures and forwards.

Instructions
Use your textbook to answer the following questions from Chapter 5:
Exercise 13 and 14.
Please, upload xls, xlsx file.
Please, use the full computing power of Excel.
Questions

13. A US-based corporation has decided to make an investment in Sweden, for which it

will require a sum of 100 million Swedish kronor (SEK) in three-months’ time. The

company wishes to hedge changes in the US dollar (USD)-SEK exchange rate using

forward contracts on either the euro (EUR) or the Swiss franc (CHF) and has made the

following estimates:

• If EUR forwards are used: The standard deviation of quarterly changes in the

USD/SEK spot exchange rate is 0.007, the standard deviation of quarterly changes

in the USD/EUR forward rate is 0.018, and the correlation between the changes is

0.90.

• If CHF forwards are used: The standard deviation of quarterly changes in the

USD/SEK spot exchange rate is 0.007, the standard deviation of quarterly changes

in the USD/CHF forward rate is 0.023, and the correlation between the changes is

0.85.

Finally, the current USD/SEK spot rate is 0.104, the current three-month USD/EUR

forward rate is 0.471, and the current three-month USD/CHF forward rate is 0.602.

(a) Which currency should the company use for hedging purposes?

(b) What is the minimum-variance hedge position? Indicate if this is to be a long or

short position.

14. You use silver wire in manufacturing. You are looking to buy 100,000 oz of silver in

three months’ time and need to hedge silver price changes over these three months.

One COMEX silver futures contract is for 5,000 oz. You run a regression of daily silver

spot price changes on silver futures price changes and find that

δs = 0.03 + 0.89δF +  

What should be the size (number of contracts) of your optimal futures position? Should

this be long or short?