futures

Sources in India have confirmed that exchanges and trading firms are still waiting on the Indian parliament to amend the Forward Contracts Regulation Act in order that new asset classes such as weather futures and index-linked weather contracts can be introduced to markets there. This is seen as essential for India to be seen as […]

Eurex, the European derivatives exchange, has launched it’s U.S. hurricane futures for 2010. The instruments are now available to trade for the whole of next year for the same three regions as 2009 (U.S. nationwide, Gulf Coast and Florida).  More details are available from Reuters. You can find the hurricane futures on the Eurex website […]

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has put out a press release which asks for public comments on a proposal submitted by Media Derivatives, Inc. to allow them to set up a ‘movie derivatives’ exchange. Veriana Networks, a privately owned company, are applying to launch an exchange called Media Derivatives (MDEX) which would provide a […]

The Insurance Futures Exchange (IFEX) has reduced the block trade minimum for all types of contracts it handles. Back in July they reduced the minimum block trade amount to 25 on it’s new North East and Eastern Seaboard contracts and now that minimum applies to all wind contracts available on the exchange. IFEX say that […]

Today saw the relaunch of the much anticipated Hurricane Risk Landfall Options (HuRLOTM) from Weather Risk Solutions, LLC. We wrote about HuRLOs when they launched as a pilot back in October 2008 with much anticipation of the full launch as they offer an easily accessible method to hedge against landfalling hurricanes. Trading opens today on […]

The Insurance Futures Exchange (IFEX) has announced that it is expanding its range of event linked futures by listing two new areas on its parent the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange. The two contracts listed are Eastern Seaboard and North East U.S. Tropical Wind, these provide a means to hedge against the less likely (but should […]

The offshore wind energy industry is growing rapidly. It’s an environmentally friendly and sustainable form of energy production which is getting more focus as governments begin to support companies wanting to build offshore wind farms both financially and by allowing them access to areas of coastline which are perfect sites. As this industry grows the […]

Perils AG, the company set up by a group of leading reinsurers to aggregate and distribute European catastrophe loss data (blogged about previously here) has released it’s own estimates for European windstorm Klaus which hit France and Spain in January. They’ve released a figure of €1.55b ($2.12b) which comes in the range issued by the […]

The CME Group has announced that they have acquired the Carvill Hurricane Index and changed it’s name to the CME Hurricane Index. This makes total sense as the hurricane futures and options contracts are all traded and settled on the CME. In addition the CME have brought EQECAT on board to be the new calculation […]

Marsh has teamed up with Berkshire Hathaway to create a windstorm insurance program aiming to bring capacity back to the hard-hit energy companies who operate in the Gulf of Mexico. The program has been called the Cost and Certainty Coverage Program (or Triple C for short) and carries $500m of aggregate, annual capacity. Underwritten by […]