A new direction for weather derivatives

Specialised quanto products are now driving demand in the weather derivatives markets. Alex Davis looks at why this is the case, and how improvements in data provision are making this possible

The weather derivatives market has been characterised by periods of explosive growth followed by severe retrenchment that has left trade volumes today well below the peaks of 2007.

Standard vanilla weather derivatives volumes remain relatively lacklustre. However, more and more end-users are waking up to the value of the quantity-adjusting option (quanto) derivative, where weather acts as a trigger to an underlying commodity price payout. As such, there have been significant strides in the