Risk Manahement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Risk Manahement - Essay ExampleThese strategies are forward contracts, futures contracts, swaps, call options, collars etc. All these strategies have signifi chamberpott strengths and weaknesses, which needs to be efficiently balanced by firms.This paper illuminates the impact of commodity price take chances of exposure on the firms as well the signifi keepce of hedge such risk. It also analyzes contrary hedging strategies accustomd by companies and their strengths and weaknesses.Hedging constitutes one of the most important financial decisions of every firm. It refers to different ways through which a company can minimize its exposure to various kinds of risks. Fuel represents a crucial cost in the total airline expenditure and thus fuel price risk has a salient impact on the earnings and gold flows of airlines. Any drastic increase in oil prices can adversely affect cash flows. Effective hedging strategies are imperative for airlines to minimize the variability of cash flow s due to volatility in oil price (Carter, Rogers. and Simkins, 2003). This is why almost firms use various hedging strategies to protect their cash flow from variations resulting out of oil price fluctuations. Froot, Scharfstein and Stein propound that if a firm does not hedge, there bequeath be some variability in the cash flows generated by assets in place. (1993, p. 1630) A non-hedging airline is also likely to be dandyly vulnerable to any change in fuel market price.Because of effectiveness of hedging in commodity price risk manageme... that for a given level of debt, hedging can reduce the probability that a firm will find itself in a situation where it is unable to repay that debt. (1993, p. 1632) This is one of the greatest benefits of using hedging strategies to manage commodity price risk. These strategies assure management that even if the commodity price moves in the unfavourable direction, it will not have a great impact of firms earnings and cash flows.Forward contrac ts are the most common hedging strategies used by firms. Southwest airlines managed its exposure to oil price risk in the year 2005 with the help of forward contracts and successfully enhanced its earnings. On the contrary, in the same year other airlines like Delta and United Airlines faced great difficulties. However, there is high credit risk involved in hedging dodging using forward contracts. Froot, Scharfstein and Stein elaborate that because they are not colonized until maturity, forwards can involve substantially more credit risk than futures. (1993, p. 1649) Forwards have a distinctive feature as compared to the futures contract that they cannot be settled before maturity date. Hence, on one hand forwards strategy helps firms to considerably minimize their exposure to commodity price risk, it also leads to epoch-making credit risk.Futures contract is another most commonly used strategy that firms can use to hedge against the commodity price risk. Veld-Merkoulova and de Ro on (2003) illuminate a nave strategy which relies on short term futures contracts for the purpose of hedging long term position in the spot market when the size of both the positions are the same. low this hedging strategy, the futures contract is closed on the same date as that of the spot contract if futures contract has a maturity date