Treasury

Abstract: ORGANIZED FUTURES MARKETS in financial securities were first established in the U.S. on October 20, 1975 when the Chicago Board of Trade opened a futures market in Government National Mortgage Association 8% Pass-Through Certificates. This was followed in January, 1976 by a 90 day Treasury Bill futures market on the International Monetary Market of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In terms of trading volume both have been clear commercial successes and this has led to the establishment, in 1977, of futures markets in Long Term Government Bonds and 90-day Commercial Paper and, in 1978, of a market in One-Year Treasury notes and new GNMA markets. The classic economic rationale for futures markets is, of course, that they facilitate hedging-that they allow those who deal in a commodity to transfer the risk of price changes in that commodity to speculators more willing to bear such risks. The primary purpose of the present paper is to evaluate the GNMA and TBill futures markets as instruments for such hedging. Obviously it is possible to hedge by entering into forward contracts outside a futures market, but, as Telser and Higinbotham [19] point out, an organized futures market facilitates such transactions by providing a standardized contract and by substituting the trustworthiness of the exchange for that of the individual trader. In the futures market, price change risk can be eliminated entirely by making or taking delivery on futures sold or bought, but few hedges are concluded in this manner.' The major problem with making or taking delivery is that there are only four delivery periods per year for financial security futures so it is often

Abstract: We investigate the effects of U.S. monetary policy on asset prices using a high-frequency event-study analysis. We test whether these effects are adequately captured by a single factor-changes in the federal funds rate target - and find that they are not. Instead, we find that two factors are required. These factors have a structural interpretation as a "current federal funds rate target" factor and a "future path of policy" factor, with the latter closely associated with Federal Open Market Committee statements.We measure the effects of these two factors on bond yields and stock prices using a new intraday data set going back to 1990. According to our estimates, both monetary policy actions and statements have important but differing effects on asset prices, with statements having a much greater impact on longer-term Treasury yields.

Abstract: (1990). A One-Factor Model of Interest Rates and Its Application to Treasury Bond Options. Financial Analysts Journal: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 33-39.