Risk management in power markets: The Hedging value of production flexibility

Since the 1990s power markets are being restructured worldwide and nowadays electrical power is traded as a commodity. The liberalization and with it the uncertainty in gas, fuel and electrical power prices requires an effective management of production facilities and financial contracts. Thereby derivatives build essential instruments to exchange volume as well as price risks. The challenge for participants in the newly competitive market environment is how to design, price and hedge derivative contracts in particular combination with the flexibility embedded in dispatch strategies of production assets. Accordingly, an adequate basis for management and investment decisions is needed which responds to the highly complex market situation.     

离散时间单位连结人寿保险合同的局部风险最小对冲策略

单位连结人寿保险合同是保险利益依赖于某特定股票的价格的保险合同。当保险公司发行这样的保险合同后，保险公司将面临金融和被保险人死亡率两类风险。因此这样的保险合同相当对不完全金融市场上的或有索取权，不能利用自我融资交易策略复制出。本提出利用不完全市场的局部风险最小对冲方法对冲保险的风险，我们在离散时间的框架下给出了局部风险最小对冲策略。     

离散时间单位连结人寿保险合同的局部风险最小对冲策略

单位连结人寿保险合同是保险利益依赖于某特定股票的价格的保险合同 .当保险公司发行这样的保险合同后 ,保险公司将面临金融和被保险人死亡率两类风险 .因此这样的保险合同相当于不完全金融市场上的或有索取权 ,不能利用自我融资交易策略复制出 .本文提出利用不完全市场的局部风险最小对冲方法对冲保险者的风险 .我们在离散时间的框架下给出了局部风险最小对冲策略 .     

Optimal procurement strategies for online spot markets

Spot markets have emerged for a broad range of commodities, and companies have started to use them in addition to their traditional, long-term procurement contracts (forward contracts). In comparison to forward contracts, spot markets offer products at essentially negligible lead time, but typically command a higher expected price for this added flexibility while also exhibiting substantial price uncertainty. In our research, we analyze the resulting procurement challenge and quantify the benefits of using spot markets from a supply chain perspective. We develop and solve mathematical models that determine the optimal order quantity to purchase via forward contracts and the optimal quantity to purchase via spot markets. We analyze the most general situation where commodities can be both bought and sold via a spot market and derive closed-form results for this case. We compare the obtained results to the reference scenario of pure contract sourcing and we include results for situations where the use of spot markets is restricted to either buying or selling only. Our approaches can be used by decision makers to determine optimal procurement strategies based on key parameters such as, demand and spot price volatilities, correlation between demand and spot prices, and risk aversion. The results of our analysis demonstrate that significant profit improvements can be achieved if a moderate fraction of the commodity demand is procured via spot markets. The results also show that companies who use spot markets can offer a higher expected service level, but that they might experience a higher variability in profits than companies who do not use spot markets. We illustrate our analytical results with numerical examples throughout the paper.     

Pricing and clearing combinatorial markets with singleton and swap orders

In this article we consider combinatorial markets with valuations only for singletons and pairs of buy/sell-orders for swapping two items in equal quantity. We provide an algorithm that permits polynomial time market-clearing and -pricing. The results are presented in the context of our main application: the futures opening auction problem. Futures contracts are an important tool to mitigate market risk and counterparty credit risk. In futures markets these contracts can be traded with varying expiration dates and underlyings. A common hedging strategy is to roll positions forward into the next expiration date, however this strategy comes with significant operational risk. To address this risk, exchanges started to offer so-called futures contract combinations, which allow the traders for swapping two futures contracts with different expiration dates or for swapping two futures contracts with different underlyings. In theory, the price is in both cases the difference of the two involved futures contracts. However, in particular in the opening auctions price inefficiencies often occur due to suboptimal clearing, leading to potential arbitrage opportunities. We present a minimum cost flow formulation of the futures opening auction problem that guarantees consistent prices. The core ideas are to model orders as arcs in a network, to enforce the equilibrium conditions with the help of two hierarchical objectives, and to combine these objectives into a single weighted objective while preserving the price information of dual optimal solutions. The resulting optimization problem can be solved in polynomial time and computational tests establish an empirical performance suitable for production environments.     

A portfolio approach to managing procurement risk using multi-stage stochastic programming

Procurement is a critical supply chain management function that is susceptible to risk, due mainly to uncertain customer demand and purchase price volatility. A procurement approach in the form of a portfolio that incorporates the common procurement means is proposed. Such means include long-term contracts, spot procurements and option-based supply contracts. The objective is to explore possible synergies among the various procurement means, and so be able to produce optimal or near optimal results in profit while mitigating risk. The implementation of the portfolio approach is based on a multi-stage stochastic programming model in which replenishment decisions are made at various stages along a time horizon, with replenishment quantities being determined by simultaneously considering the stochastic demand and the price volatility of the spot market. The model attempts to minimise the risk exposure of procurement decisions measured as conditional value-at-risk. Numerical experiments to test the effectiveness of the proposed model are performed using demand data from a large air conditioner manufacturer in China and price volatility data from the Shanghai steel market. The results indicate that the proposed model can fairly reliably outperform other approaches, especially when either the demand and/or prices exhibit significant variability.     

Approximating Nash equilibrium for production control with sticky price

We study a mean field game problem arising from the production control for multiple firms with price stickiness in the commodity market. The price dynamics for each firm is described as a (controlled) jump-diffusion process with mean-field interaction. Each firm aims to maximize her expectation of cumulative net profit coupled with each other through price processes. By solving the limiting control problem and a fixed-point problem, we construct an explicit approximating Nash equilibrium when the number of firms grows large.     

基于时变SJC-Copula对商品期货市场间风险传染的探究

分别选取WIND商品指数和CRB指数作为衡量我国商品期货市场及国际商品期货市场综合价格的指标,利用时变SJC-Copula模型构建两者之间的动态相依结构,通过动态的尾部相关系数来探究我国商品期货市场与国际市场间的尾部相关性.实证结果表明,我国商品期货市场与国际市场间的上尾相关性要强于下尾相关性,即当商品期货价格上涨时,两个市场间更易发生风险传染.     

Utility indifference pricing and hedging for structured contracts in energy markets

In this paper we study the pricing and hedging of structured products in energy markets, such as swing and virtual gas storage, using the exponential utility indifference pricing approach in a general incomplete multivariate market model driven by finitely many stochastic factors. The buyer of such contracts is allowed to trade in the forward market in order to hedge the risk of his position. We fully characterize the buyer’s utility indifference price of a given product in terms of continuous viscosity solutions of suitable nonlinear PDEs. This gives a way to identify reasonable candidates for the optimal exercise strategy for the structured product as well as for the corresponding hedging strategy. Moreover, in a model with two correlated assets, one traded and one nontraded, we obtain a representation of the price as the value function of an auxiliary simpler optimization problem under a risk neutral probability, that can be viewed as a perturbation of the minimal entropy martingale measure. Finally, numerical results are provided.     

Coordination of supply chains by option contracts: A cooperative game theory approach

Manufacturer–retailer supply chains commonly adopt a wholesale price mechanism. This mechanism, however, has often led manufacturers and retailers to situations of conflicts of interest. For example, due to uncertain market demand, retailers prefer to order flexibly from manufacturers so as to avoid incurring inventory costs and to be able to respond flexibly to market changes. Manufacturers, on the other hand, prefer retailers to place full orders as early as possible so that they can hedge against the risks of over- and under-production. Such conflicts between retailers and manufacturers can result in an inefficient supply chain. Motivated by this problem, we take a cooperative game approach in this paper to consider the coordination issue in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain using option contracts. Using the wholesale price mechanism as a benchmark, we develop an option contract model. Our study demonstrates that, compared with the benchmark based on the wholesale price mechanism, option contracts can coordinate the supply chain and achieve Pareto-improvement. We also discuss scenarios in which option contracts are selected according to individual supply chain members’ risk preferences and negotiating powers.     

VALUING A TIMBER HARVEST CONTRACT AS A HIGH‐DIMENSIONAL AMERICAN CALL OPTION VIA LEAST‐SQUARES MONTE CARLO SIMULATION

Abstract Industrial timberland ownership in the United States has shifted substantially in the last 20 years. Having sold their fee‐owned timberlands, forest products companies relied heavily on the open market for raw timber. To reduce their exposure to market risks, however, forest products companies have been using a number of supply chain instruments, such as timber harvest contracts. As these vehicles become increasingly important to the forest industry, it is necessary and important to determine their economic values. In this study, we treated a 3‐year timber harvest contract on a 30‐year‐old loblolly pine plantation as a high‐dimensional American call option and calculated its value by the least‐squares Monte Carlo simulation technique. The estimated values of such a contract ranged from $1,693/ac to $1,984/ac under two timber price assumptions. With reasonable starting timber prices and strike price in the simulation, random timber prices led to higher contract values. Results from this study can help private landowners, timber brokers, and forest products companies better manage their business risks.     

Sharing risk through concession contracts

In this paper we model concession contracts between a public and a private party, under dynamic uncertainty arising both from the volatility of the cash flow generated by the project and by the strategic behaviour of the two parties. Under these conditions we derive three notions of equilibrium price and apply the model to a case study for one of the most important concession contracts in Italy.     

非线性非均衡蛛网模型的动态分析

描述单商品市场价格波动的蛛网模型是动态经济分析中的经典模型 ,证明了由模型 ( )所生成的价格序列在一定的条件下不会出现 3以上周期运动和混沌现象 ,并对其进行稳定性分析 ,得到模型关于均衡价格稳定的六个判别定理 .     

Well management in the North Sea

The purpose of this paper is to describe a planning model for the management of approximately 130 petroleum-producing wells in the North Sea. The objective is to form a better basis for the decisions about which wells to produce from and which to shut down during a period. Every well is dealt with individually as the production potential and chemical composition are different. The total flow consists of six saleable components: gas, four NGL products, and oil. The production may be curtailed due to the capacities of the platforms, gathering centre, pipelines and refinery plants. The total gas production is available for fulfilling the gas contracts, injecting the gas into the reservoirs or using the gas as fuel. There exist contracts for some of the NGL products, while the rest of the NGL products and oil are sold on the free market. The well-management model is solved by means of a standard mathematical programming code, and computational results are given for a planning problem with four different data sets.     

交易流动性不对等环境下基于收入共享契约的供应链协调

供应链中存在单一生产商、单一零售商和一个交易流动性不对等的第三方B2B电子交易市场。在零售需求不确定的情况下,分别建立了供应链集中决策模型、传统固定合约均衡决策模型、收入共享契约分散决策模型,验证了收入共享契约在多渠道采购环境下仍可以协调供应链,分析了使供应链达到帕累托改进的收入共享契约的参数设定,最后分别从卖出流动性和买入流动性两个角度讨论了交易流动性对供应链的影响。研究结果表明,卖出流动性好的电子交易市场可以促使供应链达到最优生产量,实现整体收益的最大化;两种交易流动性的趋好都会提高供应链效率,但生产商更偏好卖出流动性好的电子交易市场。     

销售努力及双市场化期权下的三级供应链协调

本文针对需求随机且受到零售商销售努力影响的情况,研究了由制造商、分销商和零售商组成的三级供应链的协调问题。文章首先用双期权契约对三级供应链进行协调,即在制造商和分销商以及分销商和零售商之间都采用期权契约,发现在零售商独自承担努力成本的情况下仅通过双期权契约无法协调供应链。因此在双期权契约的基础上加入了努力成本共担契约,发现当期权价格满足某种线性关系以及零售商努力成本按特定比例分摊时,联合双期权契约和努力成本共担契约能顺利协调供应链。在此基础上,文章还引入了期权的市场化定价规则,研究了期权采用市场化定价规则对供应链协调产生的影响,研究表明,引入期权市场化定价规则增加了供应链协调需要满足的条件,降低了协调的可能性,且协调状态下的期权价格受到市场因素如利率、价格波动率等的影响。最后,文章给出了期权市场化定价规则下供应链协调的条件以及参数变化对协调的影响。     

Hedging pure endowments with mortality derivatives

In recent years, a market for mortality derivatives began developing as a way to handle systematic mortality risk, which is inherent in life insurance and annuity contracts. Systematic mortality risk is due to the uncertain development of future mortality intensities, or hazard rates. In this paper, we develop a theory for pricing pure endowments when hedging with a mortality forward is allowed. The hazard rate associated with the pure endowment and the reference hazard rate for the mortality forward are correlated and are modeled by diffusion processes. We price the pure endowment by assuming that the issuing company hedges its contract with the mortality forward and requires compensation for the unhedgeable part of the mortality risk in the form of a pre-specified instantaneous Sharpe ratio. The major result of this paper is that the value per contract solves a linear partial differential equation as the number of contracts approaches infinity. One can represent the limiting price as an expectation under an equivalent martingale measure. Another important result is that hedging with the mortality forward may raise or lower the price of this pure endowment comparing to its price without hedging, as determined in Bayraktar et al. (2009). The market price of the reference mortality risk and the correlation between the two portfolios jointly determine the cost of hedging. We demonstrate our results using numerical examples.     

Pricing long-dated insurance contracts with stochastic interest rates and stochastic volatility

We consider the pricing of long-dated insurance contracts under stochastic interest rates and stochastic volatility. In particular, we focus on the valuation of insurance options with long-term equity or foreign exchange exposures. Our modeling framework extends the stochastic volatility model of Schöbel and Zhu (1999) by including stochastic interest rates. Moreover, we allow all driving model factors to be instantaneously correlated with each other, i.e. we allow for a general correlation structure between the instantaneous interest rates, the volatilities and the underlying stock returns. As insurance products often incorporate long-term exposures, they are typically more sensitive to changes in the interest rates, volatility and currencies. Therefore, having the flexibility to correlate the underlying asset price with both the stochastic volatility and the stochastic interest rates, yields a realistic model which is of practical importance for the pricing and hedging of such long-term contracts. We show that European options, typically used for the calibration of the model to market prices, and forward starting options can be priced efficiently and in closed-form by means of Fourier inversion techniques. We extensively discuss the numerical implementation of these pricing formulas, allowing for a fast and accurate valuation of European and forward starting options. The model will be especially useful for the pricing and risk management of insurance contracts and other exotic derivatives involving long-term maturities.     

Spatial price equilibrium,distribution center location and successive over-relaxation

A spatial price equilibrium problem is modeled which allows piecewise linear convex flow costs, and a capacity limit on the trade flow between each supply/demand pair of regions. Alternatively, the model determines the locations of intermediate distribution centers in a market economy composed of separate regions, each with approximately linear supply and demand functions. Equilibrium prices, regional supply and demand quantities, and commodity flows are determined endogenously. The model has a quadratic programming formulation which is then reduced by exploiting the structure. The reduced model is particularly well suited to solution using successive over-relaxation.     

Numerical Methods for the Pricing of Swing Options: A Stochastic Control Approach

In the natural gas market, many derivative contracts have a large degree of flexibility. These are known as Swing or Take-Or-Pay options. They allow their owner to purchase gas daily, at a fixed price and according to a volume of their choice. Daily, monthly and/or annual constraints on the purchased volume are usually incorporated. Thus, the valuation of such contracts is related to a stochastic control problem, which we solve in this paper using new numerical methods. Firstly, we extend the Longstaff–Schwarz methodology (originally used for Bermuda options) to our case. Secondly, we propose two efficient parameterizations of the gas consumption, one is based on neural networks and the other on finite elements. It allows us to derive a local optimal consumption law using a stochastic gradient ascent. Numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of these approaches. Furthermore, we show that the optimal purchase is of bang-bang type.