Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Hedge ratio forex tips


An option price does not fluctuate in a one-to-one relationship with the fluctuations in the price of the underlying asset. This is because as the option strike price becomes closer to or further away from the current asset price, the probability of the strike price being in the money changes. In the graph above, you can see the relation of the option price to the underlying asset price. The word used to describe the relationship of the option’s price change to the underlying asset’s price change is the hedge ratio or delta. As you can see, as the option becomes more and more heavily in the money, the option value’s price will fluctuate very closely with the underlying asset price, meaning that the delta is approaching 1. But as the strike price becomes further and further out of the money, the delta approaches zero, as the probability that the option will have any intrinsic value on expiration also approaches zero.

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