Time series volatility of commodity futures prices

This article examines the pattern of volatility over time of a series of commodity futures prices, and focuses in particular on the futures price variability as the maturity date of the futures contract approaches. In a rational expectations model of asymmetric information, the article provides conditions under which the Samuelson hypothesis—that the variability of futures prices increases as maturity approaches—will be true. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 20: 127–144, 2000     

基于商品期货价格的通货膨胀预测研究

利用商品期货价格对中国通货膨胀进行了实证分析和预测。研究发现,大宗商品期货价格对PPI和CPI的变动具有显著影响。回测结果表明,模型对PPI和CPI的短期预测能力相对良好,对中长期预测的误差虽有增大,但预测走势与实际走势大体一致。在此基础上对下一步通胀走势进行分析后发现:2022年PPI将呈现逐步回落趋势;短期内CPI有小幅上升的可能,未来一年内将回落至较低水平震荡。由于期货价格无法预测到中长期产业政策变动,因此预测模型无法捕捉到个别月份的大幅波动,但在趋势判断上仍有一定参考价值。     

Modeling seasonality in agricultural commodity futures

The stochastic behavior of agricultural commodity prices is investigated using observations of the term structures of futures prices over time. The continuous time dynamics of (log‐) commodity prices are modeled as a sum of a deterministic seasonal component, a non‐stationary state‐variable, and a stationary state‐variable. Futures prices are established by standard no‐arbitrage arguments and the Kalman filter methodology is used to estimate the model parameters for corn futures, soybean futures, and wheat futures based on weekly data from the Chicago Board of Trade for the period 1972–1997. Furthermore, in a discussion of the estimated seasonal patterns in agricultural commodity prices, the paper provides empirical evidence on the theory of storage that predicts a negative relationship between stocks of inventory and convenience yields; in particular, convenience yields used in this analysis are extracted using the Kalman filter. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:393–426, 2002     

Multivariate realized volatility forecasts of agricultural commodity futures

We forecast the multivariate realized volatility of agricultural commodity futures by constructing multivariate heterogeneous autoregressive (MHAR) models with flexible heteroscedastic error structures that allow for non-Gaussian distribution, stochastic volatility, and heteroscedastic and serial dependence. We evaluate the forecast performances of various models based on both statistical and economic criteria. The in-sample and out-of-sample results suggest that the proposed MHAR models allowing for flexible heteroscedastic covariance structures outperform the benchmark MHAR models. In addition, the proposed Bayesian MHAR models allowing for t innovations improve both in-sample and out-of-sample forecast performance of the corresponding MHAR models with Gaussian innovations.     

China's agricultural commodity prices are expected to remain stable

Influenced by the worst US drought in 50 years,corn and soybean prices surged to record highs on Julv 19.Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 percent in five weeks,reported by Financial Times on July 19.     

Rising commodity prices

In the wake of faster economic growth and thus higher demand for commodities in the Western world, the upward trend of the prices for industrial raw materials continued during 1972, and indeed gathered speed, on world markets. The following contribution is an analysis of the development in the past year and attempts a preview for 1973.     

Arbitrage,cointegration, and the joint dynamics of prices across discrete commodity futures auctions

Underlying the search for arbitrage opportunities across commodity futures markets that differ in market structure is the idea that the futures prices for similar commodities that are traded on different exchanges adjusted for differences in currency, delivery time (if any), location, and market structure are equal. This article examines price linkages in competing discrete commodity futures auction markets. We find no evidence of cointegration of futures prices of similar commodities traded on two contemporaneous discrete auction futures exchanges in Asia. We also find no evidence of arbitrage activities across these two Asian exchanges, though this does not preclude arbitrage activities with North American continuous auction markets. This lack of cointegration may be due to nonstationarities in the trading cost component. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 799–815, 1999