IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jfutmk/v25y2005i3p281-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bias and backwardation in natural gas futures prices

Author

Listed:
  • Nahid Movassagh
  • Bagher Modjtahedi

Abstract

This paper tests the fair‐game efficient‐markets hypothesis for the natural gas futures prices over the period 1990 through 2003. We find evidence consistent with the Keynesian notion of normal backwardation. Regressing the future spot prices on the lagged futures prices and using the Stock‐Watson (1993) procedure to correct for the correlation between the error terms and the futures prices, we find that natural gas futures are biased predictors of the corresponding future spot prices for contracts ranging from 3 to 12 months. These results cast a serious doubt on the commonly held view that natural gas futures sell at a premium over the expected future spot prices, and that this bias is due to the systematic risk of the futures price movements represented by a negative “beta.” We also find evidence for the Samuelson effect. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:281–308, 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Nahid Movassagh & Bagher Modjtahedi, 2005. "Bias and backwardation in natural gas futures prices," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 281-308, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:25:y:2005:i:3:p:281-308
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernandez, Viviana, 2020. "The predictive power of convenience yields," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Seungho Baek & Mina Glambosky & Seok Hee Oh & Jeong Lee, 2020. "Machine Learning and Algorithmic Pairs Trading in Futures Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-24, August.
    3. Kyle Olsen & James Mjelde & David Bessler, 2015. "Price formulation and the law of one price in internationally linked markets: an examination of the natural gas markets in the USA and Canada," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 117-142, January.
    4. Martínez, Beatriz & Torró, Hipòlit, 2018. "Analysis of risk premium in UK natural gas futures," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 621-636.
    5. Modjtahedi, Bagher & Movassagh, Nahid, 2005. "Natural-gas futures: Bias, predictive performance, and the theory of storage," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 617-637, July.
    6. Marek Kwas & Michał Rubaszek, 2021. "Forecasting Commodity Prices: Looking for a Benchmark," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-13, June.
    7. Fernandez, Viviana, 2017. "A historical perspective of the informational content of commodity futures," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 135-150.
    8. Sheng-Hung Chen & Song-Zan Chiou-Wei & Zhen Zhu, 2022. "Stochastic seasonality in commodity prices: the case of US natural gas," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(5), pages 2263-2284, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:25:y:2005:i:3:p:281-308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0270-7314/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.