It is well documented that “unanticipated” information contained in United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA) crop reports induces large price
reactions in corn and soybean markets. Thus, a natural question that arises
from this literature is: To what extent are futures hedges able to remove or
reduce increased price risk around report release dates? This paper
addresses this question by simulating daily futures returns, daily cash
returns, and daily hedged returns around report release dates for two
storable commodities (corn and soybeans) in two market settings (North
Central Illinois and Memphis, Tennessee). Various risk measures, including
“Value at Risk,” are used to determine hedging effectiveness, and “Analysis
of Variance” is used to uncover the underlying factors that contribute to
hedging effectiveness.