A divulgação sobre instrumentos derivados : evidência empírica do setor da indústria português

Mestrado em Contabilidade

Contratos de futuros sobre taxas de juro : estudo de caso sobre a Euribor a 3 meses

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Análise Financeira

Multidimensional scaling analysis of electricity market prices

This paper studies the impact of energy and stock markets upon electricity markets using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). Historical values from major energy, stock and electricity markets are adopted. To analyze the data several graphs produced by MDS are presented and discussed. This method is useful to have a deeper insight into the behavior and the correlation of the markets. The results may also guide the construction models, helping electricity markets agents hedging against Market Clearing Price (MCP) volatility and, simultaneously, to achieve better financial results.

Utilização de produtos derivados para cobertura do risco: o caso das maiores empresas portuguesas

Com este trabalho pretende-se efetuar um estudo acerca do uso de produtos derivados pelas maiores empresas nacionais através da aplicação de um questionário às 1000 maiores empresas nacionais com base no seu volume de negócios em 2012. Com os dados recolhidos neste questionário, foi possível determinar que 28% das empresas respondentes utilizam produtos derivados na gestão do risco das suas variadas exposições. Das empresas que responderam negativamente, 27% justificaram a não utilização com o facto de não terem exposição suficiente e 23% indicaram que efetuam a cobertura das suas exposições utilizando outros instrumentos e métodos não especificados. De uma forma geral, os Swaps de taxas de juro são os instrumentos derivados mais utilizados pelas empresas nacionais e o objetivo principal que visam cumprir com a utilização destes instrumentos é a gestão do risco decorrente da exposição às taxas de juro.

Analysis of Electricity Market Prices Using Multidimensional Scaling

This paper studies the impact of the energy upon electricity markets using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). Data from major energy and electricity markets is considered. Several maps produced by MDS are presented and discussed revealing that this method is useful for understanding the correlation between them. Furthermore, the results help electricity markets agents hedging against Market Clearing Price (MCP) volatility.

Dynamics of Epileptic Activity in a Peculiar Case of Childhood Absence Epilepsy and Correlation with Thalamic Levels of GABA

Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is a syndrome with well-defined electroclinical features but unknown pathological basis. An increased thalamic tonic GABA inhibition has recently been discovered on animal models (Cope et al., 2009), but its relevance for human CAE is unproven. METHODS: We studied an 11-year-old boy, presenting the typical clinical features of CAE, but spike-wave discharges (SWD) restricted to one hemisphere. RESULTS: High-resolution EEG failed to demonstrate independent contralateral hemisphere epileptic activity. Consistently, simultaneous EEG-fMRI revealed the typical thalamic BOLD activation, associated with caudate and default mode network deactivation, but restricted to the hemisphere with SWD. Cortical BOLD activations were localized on the ipsilateral pars transverse. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy, using MEGA-PRESS, showed that the GABA/creatine ratio was 2.6 times higher in the hemisphere with SWD than in the unaffected one, reflecting a higher GABA concentration. Similar comparisons for the patient's occipital cortex and thalamus of a healthy volunteer yielded asymmetries below 25%. SIGNIFICANCE: In a clinical case of CAE with EEG and fMRI-BOLD manifestations restricted to one hemisphere, we found an associated increase in thalamic GABA concentration consistent with a role for this abnormality in human CAE.

Structured products in the current low interest rate environment

Directed Research Internship

Fiscal insurance and debt management in OECD economies

Assuming the role of debt management is to provide hedging against fiscal shocks we consider three questions: i) what indicators can be used to assess the performance of debt management? ii) how well have historical debt management policies performed? and iii) how is that performance affected by variations in debt issuance? We consider these questions using OECD data on the market value of government debt between 1970 and 2000. Motivated by both the optimal taxation literature and broad considerations of debt stability we propose a range of performance indicators for debt management. We evaluate these using Monte Carlo analysis and find that those based on the relative persistence of debt perform best. Calculating these measures for OECD data provides only limited evidence that debt management has helped insulate policy against unexpected fiscal shocks. We also find that the degree of fiscal insurance achieved is not well connected to cross country variations in debt issuance patterns. Given the limited volatility observed in the yield curve the relatively small dispersion of debt management practices across countries makes little difference to the realised degree of fiscal insurance.

Dynamic Option Adjusted Spread and the Value of Mortgage Backed Securities (Draft 1)

We extend a reduced form model for pricing pass-through mortgage backed securities (MBS) and provide a novel hedging tool for investors in this market. To calculate the price of an MBS, traders use what is known as option-adjusted spread (OAS). The resulting OAS value represents the required basis points adjustment to reference curve discounting rates needed to match an observed market price. The OAS suffers from some drawbacks. For example, it remains constant until the maturity of the bond (thirty years in mortgage-backed securities), and does not incorporate interest rate volatility. We suggest instead what we call dynamic option adjusted spread (DOAS). The latter allows investors in the mortgage market to account for both prepayment risk and changes of the yield curve.

Dynamic Option Adjusted Spread and the Value of Mortgage Backed Securities (Draft 2)

We extend a reduced form model for pricing pass-through mortgage backed securities (MBS) and provide a novel hedging tool for investors in this market. To calculate the price of an MBS, traders use what is known as option-adjusted spread (OAS). The resulting OAS value represents the required basis points adjustment to reference curve discounting rates needed to match an observed market price. The OAS suffers from some drawbacks. For example, it remains constant until the maturity of the bond (thirty years in mortgage-backed securities), and does not incorporate interest rate volatility. We suggest instead what we call dynamic option adjusted spread (DOAS), which allows investors in the mortgage market to account for both prepayment risk and changes of the yield curve.

Public and private learning from prices, strategic substitutability and complementarity, and equilibrium multiplicity

We study a general static noisy rational expectations model where investors have private information about asset payoffs, with common and private components, and about their own exposure to an aggregate risk factor, and derive conditions for existence and uniqueness (or multiplicity) of equilibria. We find that a main driver of the characterization of equilibria is whether the actions of investors are strategic substitutes or complements. This latter property in turn is driven by the strength of a private learning channel from prices, arising from the multidimensional sources of asymmetric information, in relation to the usual public learning channel. When the private learning channel is strong (weak) in relation to the public we have strong (weak) strategic complementarity in actions and potentially multiple (unique) equilibria. The results enable a precise characterization of whether information acquisition decisions are strategic substitutes or complements. We find that the strategic substitutability in information acquisition result obtained in Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) is robust. JEL Classification: D82, D83, G14 Keywords: Rational expectations equilibrium, asymmetric information, risk exposure, hedging, supply information, information acquisition.

A New open economy macroeconomic model with endogenous portfolio diversification and firms entry

This paper provides a new benchmark for the analysis of the international diversi…cation puzzle in a tractable new open economy macroeconomic model. Building on Cole and Obstfeld (1991) and Heathcote and Perri (2009), this model speci…es an equilibrium model of perfect risk sharing in incomplete markets, with endogenous portfolios and number of varieties. Equity home bias may not be a puzzle but a perfectly optimal allocation for hedging risk. In contrast to previous work, the model shows that: (i) optimal international portfolio diversi…cation is driven by home bias in capital goods, independently of home bias in consumption, and by the share of income accruing to labour. The model explains reasonably well the recent patterns of portfolio allocations in developed economies; and (ii) optimal portfolio shares are independent of market dynamics.

Immunocompetence and nestling survival in the house martin: the tasty chick hypothesis

In altricial birds post-fledging survival is usually positively related to nestling body mass. A large number of studies have shown that the latest hatched chick is the more likely to die, even if food is abundant. Here we suggest that ectoparasites may be a key factor in the evolution and the maintenance of the establishment of weight hierarchies within broods. We prepose the hypothesis that weight hierarchies within broods may be adaptive if the chick in poor condition is the one with the least efficient immune system within a nest. In this case parasites would preferentially feed on such a "tasty chick", because it would allow high reproductive rates for the parasites, without negatively affecting the survival of the other nestlings. This could prevent entire nest failure of the brood or allow the other chicks to grow more efficiently. This hypothesis was investigated in a colony of house martins Delichon urbica. We predicted that immunocompetence was positively correlated with body condition, and that nestlings dying before hedging should have lower immune responses when challenged with an antigen. T-cell immune response to an experimentally injected antigen was strongly positively related to body condition. Non-surviving chicks had low body condition and a weak immune response. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the adaptive significance of hatching asynchrony.

A problemática do risco cambial na importação estudo de caso: Empresas Importadoras de Automóveis em Cabo Verde

A problemática do risco cambial surge a partir do momento em que agentes económicos decidem efectuar as suas transacções internacionais em divisas. Neste contexto, a necessidade de conhecer e compreender o mercado cambial é peremptório. Como forma de se protegerem das exposições de taxas de câmbio, os agentes sentem necessidade de recorrer a instrumentos de protecção cambial, de forma a proporcionar uma maior segurança à negociação. O presente trabalho teve como objectivo identificar e avaliar o risco cambial nas empresas de importação de automóveis em Cabo Verde, bem como estudar o mercado cambial Cabo-verdiano, procurando, simultaneamente identificar os instrumentos de protecção disponíveis na nossa praça. No entanto, observou-se que no mercado nacional não há utilização dos derivados financeiros, embora, já seja prevista a sua implementação. Deste modo, as empresas de importação de automóveis encontram-se totalmente expostas a esse risco de mercado, e sem qualquer experiência em lidar com os instrumentos de protecção cambial. Para a consecução dos objectivos propostos, realizou-se um estudo de caso, com o propósito de estudar a problemática do risco cambial nas empresas de importação de automóveis em Cabo Verde. A colecta de dados foi realizada por meio de questionários aplicados às empresas importadoras de automóveis e foi complementada com uma entrevista não estruturada aplicada a um especialista com know-how na área. Com o estudo foi possível descrever todas as etapas do processo de importação de automóveis e analisar a expressividade dos riscos cambiais nessas empresas. The problem of currency risk arises from the moment when economic agents decide to perform their international transactions in any foreign exchange. In this respect, the need to know and understand the exchange market is peremptory. As a way to protect themselves from the exposure of rates exchange, agents feel the need to resort to cambial instruments of protection, to provide a greater security to negotiations. This present work had as objectives to identify and survey the currency risk in importing cars companies in Cape Verde, as well as studying the Cape Verdean exchange market to, simultaneously, identify the instruments of protection existent. However, it was observed that in the national market there is no use of financial derivatives, although its implementation is decided. Thus, importing cars companies are entirely exposed to this market risk and without any experience in dealing with the hedging risks these transactions imply. To the attainment of the proposed objectives, we performed a case study with the purpose of studying the problem of currency risk in the importing cars companies in Cape Verde. The data collection was held through questionnaires to the cars importing companies and was complemented with an unstructured interview applied to a specialist with expertise in the area. With the study it was possible to describe all the stages of importing cars process and analyze the expressiveness of currency risks in these companies.

Local volatility changes in the black-scholes model

In this paper we address a problem arising in risk management; namely the study of price variations of different contingent claims in the Black-Scholes model due to anticipating future events. The method we propose to use is an extension of the classical Vega index, i.e. the price derivative with respect to the constant volatility, in thesense that we perturb the volatility in different directions. Thisdirectional derivative, which we denote the local Vega index, will serve as the main object in the paper and one of the purposes is to relate it to the classical Vega index. We show that for all contingent claims studied in this paper the local Vega index can be expressed as a weighted average of the perturbation in volatility. In the particular case where the interest rate and the volatility are constant and the perturbation is deterministic, the local Vega index is an average of this perturbation multiplied by the classical Vega index. We also study the well-known goal problem of maximizing the probability of a perfect hedge and show that the speed of convergence is in fact dependent of the local Vega index.