Wholesale trading
NYSE Liffe’s wholesale trading facilities (block trading, basis trading and asset allocation) are an important facility alongside the central market. These facilities offer flexibility to the market by by providing certainty of execution to support defined trading strategies.

To maintain the important relationship between the central market and the wholesale facilities, it is important that the price and exposure relationship between the two different legs of any basis trade or asset allocation trade is maintained. Given the variety of combinations and asset classes, it is also necessary to apply one of two standard hedge ratios as appropriate. Where the trade involves products of the same duration or where no duration bias applies (e.g. FTSE100 versus Eurotop100 futures contracts or Long Gilt versus FTSE100 futures contracts), a currency adjusted nominal value for nominal value ratio will be applied. Where the trade involves products of different duration along the same or different yield curve, (e.g. Short Sterling versus Long Gilt contracts or Euribor® versus Long Gilt contracts), then the current duration based approach that uses the basis point value to align the price sensitivity of each instrument will be applied.
Examples of hedge ratio calculations


(a) Different Duration

For an Asset Allocation trade between Long Gilt futures and euro Swapnote® futures:

Contract Nominal Size Sterling FX Spot Rate BPV Nominal Size £
Long Gilt £100,000   0.071 £100,000.00
10yr euro Swapnote® €100,000 1.2572 0.083 £79,545

The nominal size must be first converted to a base currency (for example, Sterling).

Long Gilt Future
=
Nominal value of Long Gilt x BPV of Long Gilt


10 Yr Swapnote
Nominal value of 10 Yr Swapnote x BPV value of 10 Yr Swapnote
7100.00

6602.24

Therefore the ratio will be 100 Long Gilt futures contracts for every 108 10yr Euro Swapnote® futures contracts.

(b) Same Duration

For an Asset Allocation trade between Sep 08 Short Sterling and Sep 08 Euribor® Futures:

Contract Nominal Size Spot Rate Sterling FX £ Nominal Size
Sep 08 Sht Stg   £500,000 £500,000.00
Sep 08 Euribor® €1,000,000 1.6024 £624,063.90

The nominal size must be first converted to a base currency (in this example Sterling).

Sep 08 Short Sterling Futures
=
Nominal value of Short Sterling


Sep 08 Euribor® Futures
Nominal value of Euribor®
500,000.00

795,450

Therefore the ratio will be eight Sep 08 Short Sterling futures contracts for every five Sep 08 Euribor® futures contracts.

(c) Options

For asset allocation trades between STIR Options, the hedge ratio should be determined based on the deltas of the two option contracts.

For example, for a trade consisting of a Euribor Option with a delta of 0.5 and a Euribor mid-curve option with a delta of 0.25, the ratio would be 1 Euribor Option for every 2 Euribor mid-curve Options.

An indicative calculator for hedge ratios for different contract combinations is available below.

Derivatives Wholesale Trading: Asset Allocation Spread matrices
Date Title Description
06/06/2008 Asset Allocation Hedge Ratio Calculator