Weather derivatives

28 March 2007

The key to working out risks is knowing what they are and how to hedge them, too many players take on basis risks because they believe there is perfect correlation.

Many buyers of electricity have a direct correlation with weather. Let us assume that you are a retailer, you know that when it is warm people go shopping, when it is very hot people do not. Likewise if it is very cold people do not go shopping.

So if you could give away some profits in order to hedge returns when the weather is very hot or very cold, then this would be a good product. Who might sell you this type of product, well the banks inevitably would want a slice, but they tend to hedge risk and so for every sell and buy to you they will have a corresponding buy and sell.

In the case of the ice cream maker he would happily sell you the hot summer part of your deal. The wooly jumper manufacturer will sell you the cold part of the deal.

The key to being a customer is working out what your risks are and then hedging them.


Risk Management  Industry 

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