Back Months

  

Categories: Derivatives, Stocks, Bonds

Back months are the furthest out commodities contracts available. Like you wanted to buy call options on sorghum (a foodstuff, not a dental problem). They're offered with monthly expirations each month through 2021, May. May is your back month.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a Future Value calculat...7 Views

00:00

Finance a la shmoop, what is a future value calculation?

00:08

[Meditating]

00:10

Yeah all right that was supposed to be a Swami sorry yeah maybe this should be

00:14

more like a mirror mirror on the wall street thing who's the futurist value of [Girl talking to the mirror]

00:19

them all, yeah maybe not.. All right well hopefully you get the

00:22

gist a present value that is where you take a pot of profit supposedly being [Pot of gold at the end of a rainbow]

00:27

given to you at some point in the future 'n' years away it carries some risk and [Leprechaun at the other end of the rainbow]

00:32

there is a current safe or risk-free guaranteed rate of return that this risk [Coins with risk on going to the Leprechaun]

00:38

has to sit upon got it so that present value is some discount to whatever [Present value definition written on a 100 dollar bill]

00:44

future values are coming your way, like you have an 8% risk premium that sits on

00:50

top of a 3% safe rate of return like a government bond that guarantees you 3% [Government bond certificate]

00:55

and if the US government bonds are wiped out well it means that we've been nuked

00:59

and while you're just a zombie glowing in the dark so you don't worry about [3 zombies walking towards the screen]

01:02

your investment returns at that point. All right so here's an example you're

01:05

promised 10 grand in five years and well now you

01:09

have to discount it back to its present value as ten grand over that 1+1 0.08 [Calculation is shown]

01:16

plus point three, that's 1.11 to the fifth power there in the

01:19

denominator which is combined during the math area it's a hair under 6 grand so [Loading symbol then the answer appears]

01:24

that's the present value of 10 grand five years from now discounted back for

01:27

risk and time all right so future value is the inverse thing I'm

01:32

not quite the inverse math but we're getting there [The calculation is crossed out]

01:34

Here you're just taking a given compounded number in whatever form and

01:39

coming up with its future value like you're buying a bond that pays 5% a

01:43

year interest and you want to know how much cash it will have thrown off in the [Money falling from the bond certificate]

01:47

next 10 years before its principal then comes due and pays all right well you'll [Lots of money starts falling]

01:52

add up the flows of cash and we'll say 100 grand invested that's 5 grand a year

01:56

in interest or $2,500 twice a year all right and you nerd lingers in the back [People sat in class]

02:01

are asking whom but what about the cash you get sooner rather than later

02:04

you could reinvest that make yet more money shouldn't that money go into the [Girl at the back of the class]

02:08

future value calculation, well yes that distributed money just gets recompiled

02:14

and thrown into the stone soup of future value financial calculations thank you [Guy throws cash into the pan full of soup]

02:18

nerd lingers but a key point here in noting what the concept is of a [A bowl of soup with money in it]

02:22

future value calculation is that there is risk and there is a risk-free rate

02:27

and they kind of get married and sit on top of each other in a g-rated way [Guy sits on a girls knee and she kicks him away]

02:31

they're all financial leeches against what the total future value might be so

02:35

if we have this calculation of a hundred grand invested you can see we have ten

02:39

years of giving five grand a year that's 50 grand in total fee add everything up [Timeline showing the investment]

02:44

then you get your hundred grand back at the end and your total cash returns to

02:48

you will be yes a hundred fifty thousand dollars but it's worth more than that [The total returns calculation is shown]

02:52

because you receive the money along the way and you could invest it and gain

02:56

more dough yeah god it's how compounding works, got it? So when in doubt consult [Hand waving over a crystal ball]

03:01

the crystal ball or the magic mirror if you've got one. Mirror mirror on the

03:05

future value, something like that...

Up Next

Finance: What Are Commodities?
74 Views

What are Commodities? Commodities are primarily defined as everyday resources consumed by most people in industrialized societies that are derived...

Finance: What is Inflation: Adjusted, Hyper, Currency, Commodity?
21 Views

What is inflation, and if we poke it with a pin, will it pop?

Finance: What Is a Call Option?
25 Views

What is a call option? A call option is a type of contract that lets the investor buy shares of a stock at a certain price and within a window of t...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)