Benefits of Derivative Instruments

Benefits 1. Risk Allocation, Transfer, and Management Derivative instruments allow allocation, transfer, and management of risks without trading an underlying. The information on cash or spot market prices for financial instruments, goods, and services may assist an investor or issuer…

More Details
Forward Commitments vs. Contingent Claims

Derivatives typically fall into two classes: forward commitments or contingent claims. The primary difference between the two is based on rights and obligations. Forward commitments carry an obligation to transact, whereas contingent claims confer the right to transact but not…

More Details
Determining the Value at Expiration and Profit from a Long or a Short Position in a Call or Put Option

Define the following: \(c_T =\) Value of the call at expiration. \(p_T =\) Value of a put option at expiration. \(S_T =\) Price of the underlying at time T. \(X =\) Exercise price. \(c_0=\) Call option premium. \(p_0 =\) Put…

More Details
Basic Features of Derivative Markets

Over-the-Counter (OTC) Derivative Markets OTC derivative markets can be formal institutions such as NASDAQ or an information connection of parties who buy from and sell to one another. In OTC derivative markets, derivatives end-users enter contracts with dealers or a…

More Details
Forward Contract

A forward contract is an over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contract.  In this contract, two parties agree that one party, the buyer (long), will purchase an underlying asset from the other party, the seller (short), at a later date at a fixed…

More Details
Defining Derivative and the Basic Features of a Derivative Instrument

What is a Derivative? A derivative is a financial instrument that derives (obtains) its value from the performance of an underlying. The underlying may be a single asset, a group of assets, or variables such as interest rates. Creation of…

More Details
Expected Value, Variance, Standard Deviation, Covariances, and Correlations of Portfolio Returns

A portfolio is a collection of investments a company, mutual fund, or individual investor holds. A portfolio consists of assets such as stocks, bonds, or cash equivalents. Financial professionals usually manage a portfolio.

More Details
Data Visualization

Data visualization refers to the presentation of data in a pictorial or graphical format using different graphs such as histograms, polygons, line charts, bar charts, etc. Histogram A histogram is a graphical representation of the data contained in a frequency…

More Details
Contingency Tables

A contingency table is a tabular representation of category-based data. It shows the frequencies for particular combinations of values for two discrete random variables, say X and Y. Each cell in the table represents a mutually exclusive combination of X-Y…

More Details
Data Organization for Quantitative Analysis

Typically, raw data can be organized into the following two formats for quantitative analysis: One-dimensional array: A one-dimensional array is the simplest format for representing a single variable, such as the daily trading volume of the stock exchange. Two-dimensional rectangular…

More Details