Inventory and Transformation Hedging Effectiveness in Corn Crushing

Abstract

Recently developed ethanol futures contracts now allow direct-hedging by ethanol producers. This study examines the effectiveness of one-through eight-week hedges between 2005 and 2008. Our findings show (a) ethanol inventory hedging effectiveness is significant for two-week and longer hedges, and increases with the hedging horizon; (b) ethanol futures are significantly superior to gasoline futures for hedging ethanol price risk for two-week and longer hedges; (c) the corn crushing hedge, utilizing corn and ethanol futures, is effective and provides price risk management capabilities comparable to those provided by the soybean crush hedge.

Keywords

• corn crushing
• cross-hedging
• ethanol futures
• hedging
• processing hedge