Thirteen years have passed since the Baltic International Freight Futures
Exchange (BIFFEX) was initiated. Contrary to numerous prophesies, the
BIFFEX is still in operation, and has until recently been the sole alternative for organized trading of freight rate risk.
At present, there is informal trading in futures options in the BIFFEX
market. Some practitioners use the Black formula (Black, 1976), or even
the Black-Scholes formula (Black and Scholes, 1973) to price these options. As the Baltic Freight Index (BFI) most probably does not follow a
geometric Brownian motion, even over short time intervals, practitioners
should consider other pricing formulas than Black’s. To investigate the
possibility of deriving such a formula is the aim of this paper.
BIFFEX quotes futures on the BFI. The BFI is an arithmetic
weighted dry bulk freight rate index. The index is compiled from actual
observed freight rates on certain prespecified representative routes. These
rates are provided daily by 8–12 major London shipbrokers, called, the
panel. When insufficient data are available to the panel, the rates represent the panelists’ views of the fair rate levels on the individual trades.