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The IUP Journal of Financial Risk Management :
Convergence of Futures and Spot Prices: A Cointegration Analysis
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Advertisements are the most powerful means for communicating the marketing message to the target audience. The presence of likeable attributes in ads has profound effect on the mindset of the audience and results in creating a positive image about the ads and consequently, the brands. This article focuses on understanding and using likeability in television commercials.

 
 
 

National online future exchanges were allowed to be set up in the late 2003 by the government with the purpose of helping efficient price discovery and providing them with an effective mechanism to hedge their price risk. This would not have been possible if the prices discovered by the futures market participants were not relevant to the spot market situation. This pioneering effort taken to analyze the convergence of future prices with the spot market prices using cointegration analysis proved that the future and the spot prices have effectively converged, asserting that futures markets offer the perfect mechanism for hedging their price risk in selected crops.

India is traditionally an agrarian economy; therefore, instability of commodity prices has always been a major concern of the producers as well as the consumers. Various challenges have cropped into Indian agriculture during the post WTO regime, for instance, technological changes, innovative irrigation techniques, productivity enhancement, and more importantly, the market reforms. Fragmented rural market is a huge challenge in the marketing/trading of agricultural commodities in India. Farmers' direct exposure to price fluctuations makes it too risky for many to invest in otherwise profitable activities. There are various ways to cope with this problem. Market-based risk management tools for commodities have assumed special significance in the liberalization era (Sahadevan, 2002). Apart from increasing the stability of the market, various factors in the farm sector can better manage their activities in an environment of unstable prices through futures markets. These markets serve as a risk-shifting function, and can be used to lock-in prices instead of relying on uncertain price developments (Raipuria, 2002).

Price risk refers to the probability of adverse movements in prices of commodities, services or assets. Agricultural products, unlike others, have an added risk. Many of them being typically seasonal tend to attract lower prices during the harvest season. The forward and futures contracts are considered to be efficient risk minimizing tools which insulate buyers and sellers from unexpected changes in future price movements. These contracts enable them to lock-in the prices of the products well in advance. Moreover, future prices give necessary indications to producers and consumers about the likely future ready price and the demand and supply conditions of the commodity traded. The cash market or ready delivery market, on the other hand, is a time-tested market system, which is used in all forms of business to transfer title of goods.

 
 
 

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