In order to evaluate Amaranth’s market risk on August 31,
2006, simple historical VaR (value-at-risk) measures are
constructed for their actual positions. We consider three ways
to measure this VaR. The first method is computed by
recreating the August 31, 2006 natural gas exposures of
Amaranth in other years from 1990-2005 (See Table II). Table
II shows the weight of Amaranth’s exposure to each contract
month of natural gas futures. This weight is computed by taking
the absolute value of the notional value of each contract and
dividing it by the sum of the absolute notional value of all
other contracts. For example, for the October contract month,
this was equal to 10.68%. For prior years, the weight scheme
was kept similar. That is, in each prior year, the weight of the
October current year contract was kept at 10.68%. The
corresponding returns of these positions were computed in
every year from the last trading day in August to the last trading
day in September. These 16 years of September returns were
then used to calculate a sample average and standard deviation
of the strategy in September to be used to estimate a VaR for
the strategy in September