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A hedging deficiency in eurodollar futures
Author(s) -
Chance Don M.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of futures markets
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.88
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1096-9934
pISSN - 0270-7314
DOI - 10.1002/fut.20194
Subject(s) - eurodollar , futures contract , libor , hedge , economics , financial economics , monetary economics , interest rate , ecology , biology
The eurodollar futures contract of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is arguably the most successful of all futures contracts. The contract is structured such that its price does not converge to the price of the underlying eurodollar time deposit. Ignoring the daily settlement, one typically assumes that a eurodollar futures contract perfectly hedges an anticipated loan pegged to LIBOR, provided the loan rate is set at the eurodollar expiration. This article demonstrates that this hedge is not perfect, leaving a risk empirically estimated at four basis points, a seemingly small amount but considerably larger than the bid–ask spread on the futures. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:189–207, 2006