Forecasting oil price movements: Exploiting the information in the futures market

Relying on the cost of carry model, the long‐run relationship between spot and futures prices is investigated and the information implied in these cointegrating relationships is used to forecast out of sample oil spot and futures price movements. To forecast oil price movements, a vector error correction model (VECM) is employed, where the deviations from the long‐run relationships between spot and futures prices constitute the equilibrium error. To evaluate forecasting performance, the random walk model (RWM) is used as a benchmark. It was found that (a) in‐sample, the information in the futures market can explain a sizable portion of oil price movements; and (b) out‐of‐sample, the VECM outperforms the RWM in forecasting price movements of 1‐month futures contracts. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:34–56, 2008     

The cost of carry model and regime shifts in stock index futures markets: An empirical investigation

This article examines empirically the dynamic relationship between spot and futures prices in stock index futures markets employing a class of nonlinear, regime‐switching‐vector‐equilibrium‐correction models, which is novel in this context. Using data for the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 over the post‐1987 crash period, it is shown that a long‐run relationship between spot and futures prices exists, which implies mean reversion of the basis. After providing strong evidence against the hypothesis of linear dynamics in the relationship under investigation, regime‐switching‐vector‐equilibrium‐correction models for spot and futures price movements are developed and shown to capture well the time‐series properties of our data, consistent with a large theoretical and empirical literature. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 20:603–624, 2000.     

Cointegration,unbiased expectations,and forecasting in the BIFFEX freight futures market

The relationship between freight cash and futures prices is investigated using cointegration econometrics. Results illustrate that the BIFFEX futures market is unbiased, and hence efficient for the current, one, two, and quarterly contract horizons. Since the futures contract is based on an index of various shipping routes, which has undergone several changes since its inception, stability in the relationship between the spot and futures rates is investigated using rolling cointegration techniques. Results indicate that the futures contract appears to have become more efficient over time in predicting the spot rate, and that the decrease in trading volume found in the BIFFEX market is not driven by a lack of efficiency in this market. Rather, the decrease in futures trading might be attributed to the growth rate of the freight forward market. This article incorporates the long‐run cointegrating relationships between cash and futures prices in a forecasting model and compares the forecasting performance of this model with several alternatives. It is found that while the futures price is the best predictor of future spot rates for the current‐month contract, time‐series models can outperform the futures contract at longer contract horizons. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 20:545–571, 2000.     

A No‐Arbitrage Fractional Cointegration Model for Futures and Spot Daily Ranges

The no‐arbitrage relation between futures and spot prices implies an analogous relation between futures and spot daily ranges. The long‐memory features of the range‐based volatility estimators are analyzed, and fractional cointegration is tested in a semi‐parametric framework. In particular, the no‐arbitrage condition is used to derive a long‐run relationship between volatility measures and to justify the use of a fractional vector error correction model (FVECM) to study their dynamic relationship. The out‐of‐sample forecasting superiority of FVECM, with respect to alternative models, is documented. The results highlight the importance of incorporating the long‐run equilibrium in volatilities to obtain better forecasts, given the information content in the volatility of futures prices. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 33:77–102, 2013     

The relative efficiency of commodity futures markets

The ability of futures markets to predict subsequent spot prices has been a controversial topic for a number of years. Empirical evidence to date is mixed; for any given market, some studies find evidence of efficiency, others of inefficiency. In part, these apparently conflicting findings reflect differences in the time periods analyzed and the methods chosen for testing. A limitation of existing tests is the classification of markets as either efficient or inefficient with no assessment of the degree to which efficiency is present. This article presents tests for unbiasedness and efficiency across a range of commodity and financial futures markets, using a cointegration methodology, and develops a measure of relative efficiency. In general, the findings suggest that spot and futures prices are cointegrated with a slope coefficient that is close to unity, so that the postulated long-run relationship is accepted. However, there is evidence that the long-run relationship does not hold in the short run; specifically, changes in the spot price are explained by lagged differences in spot and futures prices as well as by the basis. This suggests that market inefficiencies exist in the sense that past information can be used by agents to predict spot price movements. A measure of the relative degree of inefficiency (based on forecast error variances) is then used to compare the performance of different markets. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 413–432, 1999     

A first look at the empirical relation between spot and futures electricity prices in the United States

In this article we investigate the statistical properties of wholesale electricity spot and futures prices traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange for delivery at the California–Oregon Border. Using daily data for the years 1998 and 1999, we find that many of the characteristics of the electricity market can be viewed to be broadly consistent with efficient markets. The futures risk premium for 6‐month futures contracts is estimated to be 0.1328% per day or about 4% per month. Using a GARCH specification, we estimate minimum variance hedge ratios for electricity futures. Finally, we study the dynamic relation between spot and futures prices using an Exponential GARCH model and between the spot and futures returns series using a vector autoregression. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:931–955, 2003     

Extreme volatility,speculative efficiency,and the hedging effectiveness of the oil futures markets

This study investigates the efficiency of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) Division light sweet crude oil futures contract market during recent periods of extreme conditional volatility. Crude oil futures contract prices are found to be cointegrated with spot prices and unbiased predictors of future spot prices, including the period prior to the onset of the Iraqi war and until the formation of the new Iraqi government in April 2005. Both futures and spot prices exhibit asymmetric volatility characteristics. Hedging performance is improved when asymmetries are accounted for. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:61–84, 2007     

Noninformative and informative tests of efficiency in three energy futures markets

This article presents a critique of tests of market efficiency commonly applied to energy futures markets. Most of this literature fails to deal adequately with the endogeneity, nonstationarity, and cointegration characteristics of spot and futures prices, resulting in tests that are not informative about market efficiency. Consistent with this literature, application of these noninformative tests to spot and futures prices from three energy markets is generally not supportive of market efficiency. The article also presents two alternative tests of efficiency that properly deal with the stochastic features of these price series. Nonstationary data can be modeled with cointegration methods, allowing valid tests of the efficiency hypothesis. Alternatively, testing the equivalence of the data generation processes of the spot and futures prices provides an informative approach to efficiency testing with stationary data that does not suffer from endogeneity problems. Application of these two tests is largely supportive of weak and semistrong efficiency in three energy futures markets. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 18: 939–964, 1998     

中国小麦期货市场效率的协整检验

本文采用扩展恩格尔-格朗杰检验对中国小麦期货市场效率进行研究,结果显示:未来现货价格与距最后交易日前第7、14、28天期货价格协整,并且距最后交易日越近,期货价格越接近对未来现货价格的无偏估计,期货市场接近有效率市场;未来现货价格与距最后交易日前第56天的期货价格不协整,因此可推断距最后交易日超过56天的期货市场没有效率。     

Asymmetric information in commodity futures markets: Theory and empirical evidence

This article examines the theoretical and empirical implications of asymmetric information in commodity futures markets. In particular, it formulates and tests a theoretical model that recognizes two distinct categories of traders: hedgers, who participate in both spot and futures markets, and speculators, who participate only in the futures market. Speculators are assumed to possess differential information about the realized values of selected random variables. Multiperiod futures market equilibria are derived under competitive conditions, and the ability of futures markets to forecast changes in equilibrium spot market prices are examined. The key variable is shown to be the randomness and informational asymmetry in the aggregate supply by participating hedgers in the spot market, whose absence turns out to be the major determinant of the revelation of informational asymmetry. Moreover, under the assumption of independence of error forecasts for prices and spot market supplies, it is shown that futures market equilibrium ends up with linear expressions for prices and futures contract volumes. These linear expressions are then used to develop empirically testable models. The main empirical implications in these models revolve around the role of the basis as a predictor of future spot price changes. The paper provides an empirical investigation of these implications, using three commodities traded on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange (WCE). © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 18:803–825, 1998     

Mean Reversion and the Comovement of Equilibrium Spot and Futures Prices: Implications from Alternative Data‐Generating Processes

The comovements of spot and futures prices are characterized by six binary variables, including the term structure curvature of futures prices. These variables are used to uniquely identify 48 possible comovement patterns. Among them, 24 cases are associated with mean reversion, which is defined as a state when spreads between futures and spot prices are shrinking. These pattern frequencies are then calculated on a daily basis with the futures prices of 10 commodities, including precious metal, agricultural, and financial commodities. The results are further compared to simulation output from three data‐generating processes: a bivariate pure random walk, a mixed random walk with first‐order autoregression (AR(1)), and an error‐correction representation. The mean‐reverting frequencies for all 10 commodities are about 50%. Around half of the time, spot and futures prices are moving toward each other, and the rest of the time they move in the same direction. The symmetry of these results implies that the existence of substantial shocks originated from futures markets; thus, this is consistent with the risk premium view of futures trading. Also, although all simulation models produce similar mean‐reversion frequencies, the patterns of comovements of spot and futures prices are different, and the price dynamics depend heavily on whether the market is dominant contango or backwardation. Furthermore, the error‐correction model outperforms the random‐walk model for agricultural commodities, and the mixed random walk with AR(1) is hardly distinguishable from the pure random walk. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:769–796, 2001     

Price relations among hog,corn, and soybean meal futures

This paper examines the relations among hog, corn, and soybean meal futures price series using the Perron (1997) unit root test and autoregressive multivariate cointegration models. Accounting for the significant seasonal factors and time trends, we find the three series are cointegrated with one single cointegrating vector, whose coefficients are comparable to the ratios used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Ex‐post trading simulations that utilize the cointegration results generate significant profits, suggesting that market expectations may not fully incorporate the mean‐reverting tendencies as indicated by the cointegration relations, and that inefficiency exists in these three commodity futures markets. Results from our ex‐ante trading simulations that employ the USDA ratios also provide some evidence in this regard. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:491–514, 2005     

An analysis of the relationship between electricity and natural‐gas futures prices

This article analyzes the relationship between electricity futures prices and natural‐gas futures prices. We find that the daily settlement prices of New York Mercantile Exchange's (NYMEX's) California–Oregon Border (COB) and Palo Verde (PV) electricity futures contracts are cointegrated with the prices of its natural‐gas futures contract. The coefficient of natural‐gas futures prices in our model of COB electricity futures prices is not significantly different from the coefficient of gas prices in our model of PV electricity although there are differences in the production of electricity in these two service areas. The coefficients in our model do reflect differences in the consumption of electricity in the COB and PV service areas, however. Our trading‐rule simulations indicate that the statistically significant mean reversion found in the relationship between electricity and natural‐gas futures prices also is economically significant in both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample tests. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:95–122, 2002     

A maximal affine stochastic volatility model of oil prices

This study develops and estimates a stochastic volatility model of commodity prices that nests many of the previous models in the literature. The model is an affine three‐factor model with one state variable driving the volatility and is maximal among all such models that are also identifiable. The model leads to quasi‐analytical formulas for futures and options prices. It allows for time‐varying correlation structures between the spot price and convenience yield, the spot price and its volatility, and the volatility and convenience yield. It allows for expected mean‐reversion in the short term and for an increasing expected long‐term price, and for time‐varying risk premia. Furthermore, the model allows for the situation in which options' prices depend on risk not fully spanned by futures prices. These properties are desirable and empirically important for modeling many commodities, especially crude oil. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 30:101–133, 2010     

A cointegrated commodity pricing model

We propose a commodity pricing model that extends the Gibson–Schwartz two‐factor model to incorporate the effect of linear relations among commodity spot prices, and provide a condition under which such linear relations represent cointegration. We derive futures and call option prices for the proposed model, and indicate that, unlike in Duan and Pliska (2004), the linear relations among commodity prices should affect commodity derivative prices, even when the volatilities of commodity returns are constant. Using crude oil and heating oil market data, we estimate the model and apply the results to the hedging of long‐term futures using short‐term ones.     

我国黄金期货市场套期保值功能的实证研究

本文选取2008年1月9日至2010年12月31日之间期货价格和现货价格数据,运用传统回归模型(OLS)、双变量向量自回归模型(B-VAR)、误差修正套期保值模型(ECM)、误差修正GARCH模型(EC-GARCH)对样本数据进行平稳性和协整关系检验,在估计最小风险套期保值比率的基础上发现:(1)我国黄金期货市场运行三年多来,通过黄金期货市场进行套期保值是有效的,可以较为明显地降低参与者面临的价格波动风险;(2)在具体进行套期保值操作时,应该根据套期保值时限长短的不同和预期效果的差异,采用不同的模型来合理确定自身的套期保值比例。在此基础上,本文提出了相关政策建议。     

An examination of the impact of macroeconomic news on the spot and futures treasuries markets

In this study we analyze the reaction of daily cash and futures prices for several Treasury securities to the release of U.S. macroeconomic news. Some important results are reported. First, consistent with the notion of market integration, the futures market is found to be cointegrated with the corresponding cash market. Second, of the 23 types of periodic macroeconomic announcements, 19 of them have a significant influence on either the cash or futures prices. Most notably, surprises in nonfarm payroll and Treasury budget significantly influence the cash and futures market across the entire maturity spectrum. Third, consistent with the Fisher and real activity hypotheses, macroeconomic news that conveys higher inflation and/or economic growth has a negative influence on cash and futures prices. Finally, hedging with Treasury futures appears to offer investors protection from inflation‐related fluctuations in interest rates, but not against fluctuations arising due to variations in real output. Some important policy implications of the results are offered. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:453–478, 2004     

Do futures prices help forecast the spot price?

This study proposes a futures‐based unobserved components model for commodity spot prices. Prices quoted at the same time incorporate the same information, but are affected differently, resulting in the different shapes of futures curves. This model utilizes information from part of the futures curve to improve forecasting accuracy of the spot price. Applying this model to oil market data, I find that the model forecasts outperform the literature benchmark (the no‐change forecast) and futures prices forecasts in multiple dimensions, with smaller average error variation over the sample period and higher chance of smaller absolute error in each period.     

Return and Volatility Dynamics in the Spot and Futures Markets in Australia: An Intervention Analysis in a Bivariate EGARCH‐X Framework

This article provides evidence of linkages between the equity market and the index futures market in Australia, where the futures market has experienced a major structural event due to the futures contract respecification. A bivariate Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model is developed that includes a cointegrating residual as an explanatory variable for both the conditional mean and the conditional variance. The conditional mean returns from both markets are influenced by the long‐run equilibrium relationship, and these markets are informationally linked through the second moments. The crossmarket spillovers exhibit asymmetric behavior in that the volatility responses to past standardized innovations are different for market advances and market retreats. An intervention analysis shows that some of the parameters describing the return‐generating process have shifted after the contract respecification by the futures exchange. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:833–850, 2001     

Risk arbitrage opportunities in petroleum futures spreads

This article investigates the long-term pricing relationship among crude oil, unleaded gasoline, and heating oil futures prices, and finds that these commodities futures prices are cointegrated. The study finds that the spreads between crude oil and its end products are stationary. Furthermore, this article investigates the risk arbitrage opportunities in three types of popularly traded petroleum futures spreads and finds that historically profitable risk arbitrage opportunities existed and were statistically significant. However, one cannot be certain that these opportunities still exist. The research also finds that moving averages are valid test variables for measuring spreads. Statistical and tabular constructions are used to illustrate findings. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Jrl Fut Mark 19: 931–955, 1999