Non-Equity Options: Foreign Currency and Yield-Based
Chapters in this video
- 0:00 Foreign currency and the 10,000 unit convention
- 1:35 Japanese yen and the 1,000,000 unit trap
- 1:53 Directional logic: bullish currency, bearish dollar
- 2:14 Physical delivery settlement surprise
- 3:16 Yield-based options and Carla's bond portfolio fear
- 3:51 Strike price to yield: move the decimal left
- 4:14 Long yield call means rates up, bonds down
- 5:08 Side-by-side multiplier and settlement comparison
- 5:48 European style shared by both categories
- 6:52 Rapid-fire exam recap
What this video covers
- The standard contract size for foreign currency options (10,000 units), and why the Japanese yen contract breaks that rule at 1,000,000 yen
- Why buying a call on a foreign currency means you are bullish on that currency and bearish on the U.S. dollar, and how the seesaw logic reverses for puts
- The settlement surprise: foreign currency options generally settle by physical delivery of actual currency, not cash, with limited exceptions for specific cash-settled series
- Why both foreign currency and yield-based options are European-style, exercisable only at expiration, and how exam writers exploit the contrast with American-style equity options
- How to convert a yield-based strike price quote to the actual yield (move decimal one place left: strike 35 equals 3.5% yield)
- The inverse relationship that makes a long yield-based call profitable when interest rates rise and bond prices fall, and why this position hedges a bond portfolio against rising rates
- The cash-only settlement of yield-based options, and the shared European-style exercise characteristic that binds these two non-equity categories together
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