# Fight Finance

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Question 598  future, tailing the hedge, cross hedging

The standard deviation of monthly changes in the spot price of lamb is $0.015 per pound. The standard deviation of monthly changes in the futures price of live cattle is$0.012 per pound. The correlation between the spot price of lamb and the futures price of cattle is 0.4.

It is now January. A lamb producer is committed to selling 1,000,000 pounds of lamb in May. The spot price of live cattle is $0.30 per pound and the June futures price is$0.32 per pound. The spot price of lamb is $0.60 per pound. The producer wants to use the June live cattle futures contracts to hedge his risk. Each futures contract is for the delivery of 50,000 pounds of cattle. How many live cattle futures should the lamb farmer sell to hedge his risk? Round your answer to the nearest whole number of contracts. An equity index fund manager controls a USD500 million diversified equity portfolio with a beta of 0.9. The equity manager expects a significant rally in equity prices next year. The market does not think that this will happen. If the fund manager wishes to increase his portfolio beta to 1.5, how many S&P500 futures should he buy? The US market equity index is the S&P500. One year CME futures on the S&P500 currently trade at 2,155 points and the spot price is 2,180 points. Each point is worth$250.

The number of one year S&P500 futures contracts that the fund manager should buy is: