Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 16 No. 1 1986
Implicit delivery options and optimal delivery strategies for financial futures contracts
Abstract
Futures contract specification usually allow the short position some variation as to when, where, how much, and what is to be delivered. In this paper we derive the optimal delivery policy for the Treasury Bond futures contracts, and find that our policy produces profits that are positive and statistically significant. This indicates that future prices are ‘too high’ in that the short position can earn profits by skillfully exercising his delivery options. We find the actual delivery policies of market participants depart substantially from the optimal strategy. The implications of these findings for futures traders and bond dealers are discussed.
- DOI
- 10.1016/0304-405x(86)90042-5
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 41-72
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref