Price Risk Management Using Futures & Options

Registration is now CLOSED for the MARCH 2025 session. Sign up to our mailing list for future course announcements!  DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE for Details and Pricing

Agricultural commodity markets are increasingly volatile. They present growing risk of financial difficulty for farms and agribusinesses that rely on them. Knowing how to deal with difficult markets can reduce the stress of farmers, managers, and their financial partners.

This comprehensive course focuses on practical application and is essential for any farmer or agribusiness leader whose production (outputs) or raw materials (inputs) are commodity-based.

Structure of the Online Course:

The course is structured into seven units. A written text and additional references are provided for each unit. The class will work through examples of probable real-life situations and applied assignments that could happen on your farm or in your agribusiness.

The course is presented in eight live online interactive sessions. To maximize learning, these sessions will be held twice a week for four weeks on Mondays and Wednesdays starting Monday, March 3 and ending Wednesday, March 25. All classes start at 7:00 PM Eastern. This format is the most effective way to learn this material because it introduces the terminology gradually, allowing time for it to fully sink in.

While we encourage you to attend live, all sessions will be recorded on Zoom for participants to review if needed.

The Key Areas For Learning:

• Risk Management: Market risk, causes and prospects for the future
• Mechanics of Futures Trading: The basics of futures trading: the futures contract, long and short positions, open interest and volume, trading on margins and the margining process, types of orders, and convergence of futures and cash prices
• Hedging with Futures: The concept of hedging is introduced, short and long hedges are introduced and examples are provided. The relationship between gains and losses on futures and prices in the cash market are investigated.
• Cash-Futures Price Relationships: The importance of basis in hedging is illustrated. This is done by defining basis, investigating factors that affect it and showing historical basis patterns for Canadian products.
• Uses of Futures and Basis for Sellers and Buyers of Commodities: Defines and illustrates five different applications of the information on futures and basis that can be used by either sellers or buyers of commodities.
• Commodity Options –Define Puts and Calls, strike prices, premiums and what determines them. Explains risk management using options in comparison to risk management using futures.
• Technical Analysis: Identifying trends, reversals, gaps, moving averages, relative strength indices, MACD’s, channels and how they can be used in risk management.
• Developing a Marketing or Purchasing Plan Using the techniques covered in the course to develop objectives, trading rules and how to mesh them with your financial requirements.
• Technical Analysis: Identifying trends, reversals, gaps, moving averages, relative strength indices, MACD’s, channels and how they can be used in risk management.
• Developing a Marketing or Purchasing Plan Using the techniques covered in the course to develop objectives, trading rules and how to mesh them with your financial requirements.

In summary, in this programs you will learn:

• How to set up an account and trade Futures and Options
• Hedging for Futures & Options, using realistic examples
• How to understand technical analysis and information inside charts to improve your timing
• Practice applying your knowledge to current market case assignments
• Learn everything you need to know to develop a strategy
• The course includes up-to-date analysis and practice so that you may apply your new knowledge to current markets

“The course opened the door to the commodity futures world. Well worth the time and the money." - Gary Erickson, Manager, Grain Transactions, CSP Food

“It’s great having an instructor who is so genuinely keen that their students learn. The course content was challenging, but was made accessible through patient instruction.” - Holly Buchanan, Vice President, Buchanan Trading Inc