Minimum-Variance Hedging for Managing Risks in Inventory Models with Price Fluctuations

Abstract

We consider the financial hedging of a random operational cash flow that arises in inventory operations with price and demand uncertainty. We use a variance minimization approach to find a financial portfolio that would minimize the total variance of operational and financial returns. For inventory models that involve continuous price fluctuations and price-dependent demand that arrives in continuous time, we characterize the minimum-variance hedging policies and numerically illustrate their effectiveness.