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The “necessary evil” in Chinese commodity markets

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  • Fan, John Hua
  • Mo, Di
  • Zhang, Tingxi

Abstract

Enormous capital inflows into the emerging commodity futures markets in China raised concerns about the impact of speculation. Using a broad sample of 30 commodities across sectors, this paper investigates whether the increased presence of speculators in recent years destabilizes the commodities market in China. In a portfolio framework, we find that increased speculation does not give rise to higher volatilities, elevate the cross-market correlations, nor distort the market’s association with economic fundamentals. Consistent with the literature, long-short speculators contribute positively to the price discovery by reducing the broad market volatility and cross-correlation with stocks. Overall, the cross-speculative pressure remains relatively low, and the increased speculation does not cause seemingly unrelated commodities to become correlated.

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  • Fan, John Hua & Mo, Di & Zhang, Tingxi, 2022. "The “necessary evil” in Chinese commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocoma:v:25:y:2022:i:c:s2405851321000209
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomm.2021.100186
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    Cited by:

    1. Fang, Ming & Lin, Yizhou & Chang, Chiu-Lan, 2023. "Positive and negative price bubbles of Chinese agricultural commodity futures," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 456-471.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; Commodity; Financialization; Volatility; Co-movement; Correlation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
    • N25 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Asia including Middle East

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