O Uso de Derivativos no Mercado Mundial de Soja: Riscos e vantagens

The use of derivatives in the soybean agribusiness market has advantages, in addition to being an effective mechanism for risk mitigation and management. Despite this, there are producers who choose not to use this type of contract. In view of this, this study aims to analyze the derivatives market when considering the existence of probable risks and, at the same time, in which it also presents advantages for soybean producers. In the methodology, a quantitative analysis was used with a database provided by a company in the financial services segment and information available by the CME Group. The results obtained suggest that the financial derivatives market is relatively larger and more leveraged than the physical market, which translates into a risk for those who do not have exposure to changes in physical soybean prices. On the other hand, for producers who are exposed to commodity price volatility, the derivatives market becomes an important tool in business risk management, as it will directly influence expected revenue/cost. It is concluded that although there is a difference between the volumes traded in the derivatives market and the volume produced of physical soybeans, analyzing the 20/21 harvest we did not obtain any evidence that this differentiation has a causal relationship in the increase of risk for the agents.