Risk Management with KOSDAQ50 Index Futures Markets Open Access

This paper studies hedging strategies that use the KOSDAQ50 index futures to hedge the price risk of the KOSDAQ50 index spot portfolio. This study uses the minimum variance hedge model and bivariate ECT-GARCH (1,1) model as hedging models, and analyzes their hedging performances. The sample period covers from January 31, 2001 to December 31, 2002. The most important findings may be summarized as follows. First, both the risk-minimization and GARCH model exhibit hedge ratios that are substantially lower than one. Hedge ratios of the risk-minimization tend to be higher than those of GARCH model. Second, for the in-sample data, hedging effectiveness of GARCH model is higher than that of the risk-minimization, while for the out-of-sample data, hedging effectiveness of the risk-minimization with constant hedge ratios is not far behind the GARCH model in its hedging performance. Third, the hedging performance of KOSDAQ50 index futures is lower than that of KOSPI200 index futures, but higher than that of KTB futures. In conclusion, in the KOSDAQ50 index market, investors are encouraged to use the simple risk-minimization model to hedge the price risk of KOSDAQ50 spot portfolios.