Arbitrage opportunities

How will you react if someone says that there are arbitrage opportunities in a particular commodity?

If you are not familiar with the market, it could sound Greek or Latin to you. But if you are familiar with the market, you will immediately react, saying you are already tapping them.

Market behaves differently from one place to another or even one exchange to another. One reason why arbitrage is available is because no market is perfectly efficient.

When the inefficiency shows up in one market or the other, traders get an arbitrage opportunity.

Basically, arbitrage is buying a commodity in one market and simultaneously selling it in another, profiting from a temporary difference. This is considered a riskless profit for an investor or a trader.

For example, let us take the arbitrage opportunity in gold contracts that was available a couple of weeks ago on the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX).

On January 24, gold contracts maturing for delivery in April ruled at ₹28,815 for 10 gm on NCDEX. On MCX, they were quoted at ₹28,623.

On both these exchanges, gold is traded in a unit of 1 kg with prices being quoted at ₹/10 gm.

The arbitrage opportunity here is that a trader can buy one unit on MCX and sell one unit on NCDEX.

But things are not as simple as they seem to be. This is because you cannot interchange commodities from MCX to NCDEX or vice-versa.

Therefore, you will have to look for opportunity to square off the positions on both the exchanges. It will depend on how prices behave subsequently.

Arbitrage opportunities are available in spot markets too but you will have to take into account factors such as local taxes and transportation charges.

How arbitrage funds work.

The last five years have seen many events that sparked market volatility — RBI actions, domestic and global factors, FII flows, tensions in Syria, liquidity infusion through Quantitative Easing (QE) and talk of tapering QE, to name a few. This volatility has terrified investors in most asset classes.

In such a scenario did you know there are funds that have returned 13 per cent on an average during the past three years?

Hedged against risk

Arbitrage funds are a category of mutual funds that invest in hedged equity positions.

The underlying mechanism of these funds is to capture the difference in prices of the same equity share listed on two exchanges and/or on the derivative segment. The fund manager takes inverse positions in different exchanges for the same share/scrip.

This ensures risk-less profits for the fund as the position is hedged.

In a simplistic example, suppose a share is quoting at Rs 100 on NSE and at Rs 110 on BSE. The fund manager simply buys shares on NSE and sells them on BSE leading to a profit of Rs 10 without any risk.

The same mechanism works when the fund manager hedges through the use of derivatives. He buys physical shares on one exchange and sells derivatives/futures on another and vice versa.

It’s a well known fact that at the end of a futures contract, the price of the futures and the underlying shares match each other. So, if there is a profitable spread between futures and spot prices, fund managers exploit the opportunity for quick gains.

The returns of arbitrage funds carry low risk. As the portfolio of the fund is hedged at all times, whichever direction the market takes, you make a profit on at least one part of the portfolio — either on your buy or sell position.

For instance, if you have bought shares of company A on BSE at Rs 100 and sold its futures at Rs 110, your profit is fixed at Rs 10. If the price of company A on BSE grows to Rs 130 and consecutively to Rs 140 in the futures, you will have mark-to-market Rs 30 profit on BSE and mark-to-market loss of Rs 30 on futures.

Tax advantage

The advantages of arbitrage funds don’t end here. As these funds invest mostly in equity, they enjoy tax status of equity investments.

So, if you are invested for more than one year in the fund, you will not pay any capital gains tax on the profits you make. So, whenever markets swing wildly, arbitrage funds can be the silver lining for your portfolio.

Global Comex, Indian Mcx Gold Prices: The Arbitrage Opportunity

In dollar terms, and minus strong external stimuli, the Indian and global gold prices should be aligned - because the Indian price is set by the global price. However, when there are strong external factors, the Indian price in dollars can be different from the global price. That difference opens up the possibility of arbitrage. 

The chart below shows global and Indian gold prices (in dollar terms) from January 2012 on-wards  Indian prices in dollars have been higher in some periods - thanks mainly to duties on gold imposed by the government. For those with trading acumen, these differences on a daily basis are arbitrage opportunities in a global market.