pcblockchaingames|恶劣的天气点燃了一个250亿美元的市场

Marty Marino (Marty Malinow)PcblockchaingamesThe mother will never understand what her son does for a living. To her friends, she said he was "a stockbroker related to the weather". Malinow can't object completely-he knows that most people know nothing about financial contracts based on sunshine, rain and wind.

That is beginning to change. Demand for weather derivatives is soaring against a backdrop of increased climate volatility and social change. The average trading volume of listed products jumped more than 260 per cent in 2023, and the number of outstanding contracts is now 48 per cent higher than a year ago, according to CME Group. Industry insiders estimate that such publicly traded corners may account for only 10 per cent of all trading activity; the nominal value of outstanding derivatives could be as high as $25 billion.

Marino, founder and CEO of consulting firm Parameter Climate, said: "now our business has more trajectories. "Direct weather fluctuations, supply chain problems, inflation and geopolitics exacerbate vulnerabilities. This means that the weather may now gobble up a larger portion of profits. "

Catastrophe bonds, better known as weather bets on Wall Street, have also risen after a year of handsome returns. But this boom is at work in derivatives, which provide a different hedge: to protect people from less serious but more common weather phenomena. If an once-in-a-century storm hits a community, a cat bond may pay off, while weather derivatives can compensate tourism when there is too much rain, or farmers when crops are damaged in a hot summer.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange expanded its product range last year in response to surging demand for its listed derivatives, all based on temperature. Traders and companies can now buy options covering Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, Burbank, Paris and Essen, Germany, as well as established contracts covering Chicago, New York, London and Tokyo. In its August debut, Essen alone had 5000 "daily heat" options traded (linked to the cold weather).

Scott Clem (Scott Klemm), chief revenue officer of Arbol Inc., said: "We are in market 3.PcblockchaingamesVersion .0. " The company designs products for companies that want to hedge against weather risks. "We now have more room for growth and more room to rise."

Hedging risk

Part of the reason for the surge in demand is that companies are just beginning to face bad weather. In some cases, this is because their business has been affected, in others, because they are responding to pressure from investors and consumers. In many jurisdictions, regulators are starting to force companies to quantify the threat of weather to their businesses.

At present, most large European listed companies are required to disclose risks and opportunities that they believe come from environmental factors. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (Securities and Exchange Commission) finalised a rule in March requiring companies to disclose information about climate-related risks that could affect their businesses and the mitigation measures they have taken.

"all these companies have weather risks," said Nicholas Ernst, managing director of climate derivatives at market intermediary BGC Group (BGC Group). "once, they didn't hedge, and now they have to deal with that risk." "We are beginning to enter this much larger financial market."

SEC's plan remains the subject of heated debate, with the regulator facing lawsuits not only from groups challenging it to introduce regulatory powers over such products, but also from those who believe the rules are not strict enough. In any case, the expectations of investors and other stakeholders mean that companies are under increasing pressure to identify and resolve risks.

Mr Clem of Albor believes that it has become more difficult for companies to solve the problem in the way they used to. "how many times have we read the earnings report or listened to the earnings conference call, and the company executives said, 'you know, it's a very wet spring. It affects our bottom line. Then shrug your shoulders and go on? He said.

Mr. Marino, who calls himself a "conditioner" in the market, was an early employee of Enron Corp., one of the world's first weather derivatives divisions. For more than 1/4 centuries, he has helped companies hedge against nature's risks, creating contracts ranging from cold cattle (shivering burns more calories) and undersea power cables (they don't conduct electricity well when their connections get warmer) and turkey mortality (birds die if they're too hot).

But historically, weather derivatives have been used to mitigate demand fluctuations caused by temperature changes by energy companies. Power suppliers face obvious and foreseeable risks: if summers are colder than expected, people will use air conditioners less frequently, while heating demand may weaken in mild winters. Options based on the temperature index can help offset any impact on their income.

For example, Star Group LP, a supplier of household heating and air-conditioning products based in the United States and a distributor of heating oil, uses hedging tools to help mitigate the impact of warm weather on cash flow. According to the company's financial statements, the contracts mean that the company will receive up to $12.5 million in revenue if temperatures exceed a certain threshold between November and March. Following the receipt of payments in the most recent fiscal year, including full benefits in 2023 and the maximum payment due for contracts in 2025, the maximum payment has risen to $15 million. The company declined to comment.

Energy companies have also contributed to the current boom, albeit for new reasons. Solar panels, wind farms and hydropower are dominated by sunlight, wind speed and rainfall, respectively, which means that as producers switch to renewable energy, they face new supply-side fluctuations in addition to traditional consumption fluctuations.

"this intermittence, coupled with volatility in the natural gas market, has reactivated the weather derivatives sector," said Arbol's Klemm. Arbol recently raised $60 million in a funding round to help it expand.

　　Malinow的公司Parameter Climate与热衷于防范这类威胁的公司合作。这其中包括需求日益复杂的能源供应商，以及首次考虑天气对冲的企业。

　　他说：“还有其他垂直行业也存在潜在的天气风险，比如陆上和海上建筑、农业和交通运输。”“有很多公司甚至不知道如何开始应对风险，随着他们逐步认识到这一切，这将有助于未来的市场增长。”

　　科技进步的产物

　　气象科学技术的进步正在产生新的、更精密的产品。一个经典的天气交易可能看起来像Star Group使用的交易，但跨国种子和农药生产商先正达（Syngenta）找到了另一种方式来部署衍生品，以增强其产品对于农民的吸引力。

　　根据AgriClime计划，先正达承诺，如果自然环境不能提供合适的生长条件，农民购买的某些作物将获得高达30%的现金退款。例如，当大雨威胁到大麦收成时，种植者不会被消灭。这种情况发生在英国上一个种植季节，先正达表示：“它向99%的杂交大麦客户支付了费用。”

　　该计划实际上是由衍生品支撑的。这类合约的具体结构各不相同（看涨期权、看跌期权和掉期期权是常见的变体），但通常都是由承担天气风险的买方（比如先正达）向承担该风险的卖方支付溢价，并承诺在满足某些气象指标的情况下支付。保险公司，有时还有对冲基金或其他投资公司，通常是交易的另一方。

　　先正达公司表示，该项目取得了巨大成功。据该公司全球天气和信用风险管理主管彼得·斯坦纳（Peter Steiner）介绍，由AgriClime目前提供的服务覆盖了17个国家的5万多家农场的一系列农作物。

　　“在许多国家和地区，气候变得更加不稳定，天气风险变得更加困难，”他说。“先正达农业已经证明，衍生品不仅可以有效地对冲公司的资产负债表，而且通过正确的技术和流程，它们可以保护多个个人终端用户。”

　　持续至今的疑问

　　天气市场的增长可能会重新引发一个悬而未决的道德风险问题：减轻天气对企业的财务影响，是否会降低它们解决人为气候变化问题的动力？正如一位学者在2014年所写的那样，这“可能会增加那些从这些市场中受益的人的行为的负面影响，以牺牲大多数人，特别是那些最容易受到气候变化影响的人的利益为代价。”

　　与之相反，业内人士坚持认为，这是一个积极的因素，并指出市场在帮助资助可再生能源项目以及保护社区免受气候挑战方面发挥了关键作用。Speedwell气候公司的联合首席执行官戴夫·怀特黑德（Dave Whitehead）说：“我们能够减轻这些大规模全球问题带来的痛苦。”该公司为许多天气交易提供详细的气象数据。“我们不是在解决问题，而是在创造一种局面，让政府能够在灾难发生时为重建项目提供资金。”

　　到目前为止，更实际的担忧阻碍了天气交易的增长，该行业在金融危机期间遭受重创。一项研究显示，随着风险承受者从更奇特、更难以对冲的头寸中撤出，天气衍生品市场的名义价值下降了50%。

　　天气衍生品也非常具体——通常是基于局部风险的定制合约——而且往往是短期的。这严重限制了二级市场交易活动。还有“基差风险”，指的是衍生品作为对冲工具的有效性。在天气市场的情况下，基差风险可能存在于地理位置（如果决定合约的测量点离寻求保护的地点不够近），合约生效的时间，以及赔偿内容与实际发生的经济影响无关的事实。

　　尽管面临种种挑战，市场参与者现在仍乐观依旧。

　　Maria Rapin是Nephila Climate公司的首席执行官，她负责监督一项投资策略，将资金引导到那些因天气波动而面临更大财务风险的企业和机构。Rapin说，20年前，当她谈到自己在一家大型保险公司工作时，人们的目光会变得呆滞，因为她的工作是构建巨灾债券，帮助转移天气风险。

　　“现在人们会说：‘哇，你是一切的中心。’”她说。