Fish Pool - A success or failure

• Main Authors: Mikalsen, Kjartan, Goa, Ragnhild
• Other Authors: Misund, Bård
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Stavanger, Norway 2019
• Subjects: økonomi; administrasjon; fish pool; futures; salmon; laks; volatility; applied finance; anvendt finans; VDP::Social science: 200::Economics: 210::Business: 213; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2616648

Master's thesis in Business Administration. Atlantic salmon farming is an important industry in Norway, it is however a market dominated by a high volatility. Fish Pool was established more than ten years ago, offering futures contracts for risk management. This thesis seeks to investigate whether Fish Pool futures contracts can be viewed as a success or a failure in the terms of four groups of success factors: 1. Factors related to the underlying market 2. Factors related to the actual contracts 3. Factors related to other contracts 4. Factors related to the exchange introducing the contract and its potential users In order to examine the degree of success for the contract, the price volatility has been investigated with the GARCH procedure and the price volatility has been compared with other commodities. Further, the number of trades and the trading volume has been studied. The findings suggest that salmon farmers enjoy a high operating margin, which decrease the need for risk management tools such as futures contracts. The prices are still highly volatile, and the traded volume is relatively low. Thus, the Fish Pool futures contract cannot be viewed as a success in the present market situation. submittedVersion