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Managing Global Commodities Risks and Riding the Spikes

Day One

Fundamentals of Spot and Forward Commodity Markets

  • Outlook of Commodity Markets in 2013
  • Price Formation in Commodity Spot Prices
  • Commodity Exchanges: The Old and the New
    • The Importance of Liquid Indexes for the Growth of Derivatives: the Major Lessons from Iron Ore and Steel during the year 2010
    • Shipping as an Important Part of Commodities Trading
    • Shipping Indexes and Freight Derivatives  
  • Inventory and Commodity Spot Price Volatility: the Evidence from Agriculturals and Metals
    • Theory of Storage and Convenience Yield
    • Carry Trade Relationship and Shape of the Forward Curve  
  • Margin Deposits and Margin Calls in Futures Trading
  • Clearing and Settlement of Contracts
  • The New Rules on Margin deposits
  • Hedging with
  • Futures and Forwards
  • Swaps
  • Futures on swaps

Case study: Hedging Strategies for an Oil Refiner

Metals

  • Base Metals
    • Aluminium
    • Copper
    • Nickel, Tin, Lead, Zinc
    • Iron Ore and Steel
    • The London Metal Exchange
    • Warehouses Approval
    • The new Exchanges: Shanghai, Singapore  
  • Precious Metals
    • Gold over the last 10 years
    • Silver and its particular role

Platinum, Palladium and Spread Trading

  • Uranium and Rare Earths
    • Examples and their Use in Major Industries
    • Their Scarcity and Geopolitical Issues

Energy

  • Crude Oil and Oil Refined Products
  • Oil Forward Curves over the last ten years
  • Stochastic Modelling of the Forward Curve

Case study: Hedging Strategies for an Industrial Consumer

Day Two

Energy

  • Natural Gas, Shale Gas and LNG
  • Coal and its Importance in major Countries
  • Electricity and its future sources

Risk Management of Commodities and Raw Materials

  • The Use of Options to Hedge or Get Exposure to Commodity Prices
  • Plain- Vanilla Options on Futures
  • Traded Average Price Options (TAPOs)and Average Rate Swaps on the LME
  • Exchange and Spread Options
  • Volatility Skew/Smile  in Commodities and its Information content
  • Hedging agricultural Risk with Weather Derivatives and Yield Insurance

Agricultural Commodities

  • Demography and Food Production
  • The International Food Trade
  • Agricultural Technologies and Yield Growth
  • Fertilizers as a Growing Market
  • The New Fertilizer Swaps
  • The Volatility in Corn and Wheat Prices
  • Rice and Soybeans as Crucial Commodities
  • Coffee, Cocoa, Sugar
  • Seasonality in Agricultural Commodities Forward Curves
  • Biofuels, Ethanol and their Impact on Commodity Prices
  • Water as the Next Commodity: examples from Australia, China
  • Mergers, Acquisitions and IPOs in the Mining World
    • Metals ETFs: the Value of Physical Backing

Investing in Commodities

  • The different vehicles, from ETFs to Indexes and Structured Notes
  • Returns on Commodity - Related Shares
  • The Challenges in building and  managing a Commodity Index: First and Second
  • Generation Indexes
  • High Frequency Trading of ETFs and ETNs