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Evidence of oil market price clustering during the COVID-19 pandemic

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  • Narayan, Paresh Kumar

Abstract

We use hourly data on opening price, closing price, opening ask price, opening bid price, closing ask price and closing bid price to show that while oil prices are characterized by price clustering behavior, prices tend to cluster on numbers closer to zero than to one. Comparing the pre-COVID-19 sample with the COVID-19 sample, we find that evidence of price clustering is 8% more in the COVID-19 sample. We test the determinants of price clustering and find that as much as 30% of the price clustering behavior can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, using a simple technical trading strategy, we do not find any evidence that the oil market is profitable in the COVID-19 period.

Suggested Citation

  • Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2022. "Evidence of oil market price clustering during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:80:y:2022:i:c:s1057521921003227
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2021.102009
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    Cited by:

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    4. Liu, Zhenhua & Zhang, Huiying & Ding, Zhihua & Lv, Tao & Wang, Xu & Wang, Deqing, 2022. "When are the effects of economic policy uncertainty on oil–stock correlations larger? Evidence from a regime-switching analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Clement Moyo & Izunna Anyikwa & Andrew Phiri, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Oil Market Returns: Has Market Efficiency Being Violated?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 118-127, January.
    6. Min-Yuh Day & Yensen Ni & Chinning Hsu & Paoyu Huang, 2022. "Do Investment Strategies Matter for Trading Global Clean Energy and Global Energy ETFs?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-15, May.
    7. Bouteska, Ahmed & Hajek, Petr & Fisher, Ben & Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul, 2023. "Nonlinearity in forecasting energy commodity prices: Evidence from a focused time-delayed neural network," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

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