Assignment #4
BA 341
DUE: Friday December 5, 2008
Problem (25 points)
You are a farmer in eastern Oregon and have just planted your wheat crop for the year 2009 with a harvest in July 2009. You current practice is to harvest your wheat and sell it to the local grain elevator at the spot price at that time. You have planted 2,500 acres and expect to get 80 bushels an acre yield in July. However, a bright OSU student recommends you look into hedging your price risk. Now, you can hedge price by taking a position in a futures contract. Look on the Kansas City Board of Trade web site for the futures price and contract size. Then use the Kansas City Board of Trade prices. Use the KCBOT price for the July (KWN9) contracts. Clearly state the contract characteristics that you take (position buy or sell, delivery date, number of contracts, and the futures price of the contract). State your contract price as the settle price for December 2, 2008.
You are required to post a margin of $500 per contract. Post the margin based on your number of contracts.
Show a table of “net revenues” for your crop if the July spot price ranges from $6.20 a bushel to $5.30 a bushel (in units of $0.05). Show the revenues if you don’t hedge and the net revenues if you hedge with futures contracts and the difference between the two strategies. Graph the hedged and non-hedged positions.
Now it is July 2006 and you have just harvested your wheat. You have maintained the positions on the futures (not reversed your positions). Assume that the spot price is 598 cents per bushel at the time of harvest. What would happen if your yield was low by 5 bushels per acre? In other words, show the revenue under the two scenarios, no-hedge and futures-hedge for the poor yield (75 bushels per acre). Assume the price is 563 and you have a great yield (85 bushels per acre). Repeat the hedge and no-hedge revenue positions. Be sure to remember that you did not change your initial position until you completed your harvest, just before the futures contract expired.
Calendar for Months (Symbol):
Jan – F Feb – G Mar – H Apr – J
May – K Jun – M Jul – N Aug – Q
Sep – U Oct – V Nov – X Dec – Z