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ORCID

Tomasz Miziołek: 0000-0001-7844-9535

Keywords

exchange-traded funds, derivatives, investment strategy, risk hedging

Abstract

The main aims of the paper are to examine the use of derivatives by 13 exchange-traded funds primarily listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange over 2010–2025, including their magnitude and functions, and to identify patterns in derivative use over the past three decades worldwide. The results reveal that derivative use was common among exchange-traded funds listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange; however, it was limited to basic applications. Futures (standard, e-mini, and micro e-mini) were used to obtain leveraged or inverse market exposure or as a supplement to equity holdings, total return swaps were used for synthetic replication, and forwards were used for currency hedging. This study is the first analysis of derivative adoption by exchange-traded funds in an emerging market. In an international perspective, derivative use has evolved substantially over the past three decades, mainly due to the dynamic expansion of the exchange-traded fund market, but also as a result of legal changes facilitating the use of these instruments.

Acknowledgments

Funding

The research received no funds.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of the article.

Declaration about the scope of AI utilization

The authors did not use an AI tool in the preparation of the article.

First Page

69

Last Page

114

Page Count

19

Received Date

30.01.2026

Revised Date

21.06.2026

Accept Date

23.06.2026

Online Available Date

21.07.2026

DOI

10.7172/2353-6845.jbfe.2026.1.7

JEL Code

G11, G12, G13, G23

Publisher

University of Warsaw

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