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What drives informed trading before public releases? Evidence from natural gas inventory announcements

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  • Chen Gu
  • Alexander Kurov

Abstract

This paper shows evidence of informed trading in the natural gas futures market before gas inventory announcements. We examine whether traders can predict the upcoming announcement by processing public information. The results show that the difference between the median forecast of analysts with high historical forecasting accuracy and the consensus forecast can be used to predict inventory surprises. This predictor explains some of the pre‐announcement price drift, suggesting that informed trading before the announcement is likely to be driven by superior forecasting rather than by information leakage. A simple trading strategy conditioned on the predictor would have generated an annualized Sharpe ratio of 1.26.

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  • Chen Gu & Alexander Kurov, 2018. "What drives informed trading before public releases? Evidence from natural gas inventory announcements," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(9), pages 1079-1096, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:38:y:2018:i:9:p:1079-1096
    DOI: 10.1002/fut.21926
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    2. de Bonviller, Simon & Zuo, Alec & Wheeler, Sarah Ann, 2019. "Is there evidence of insider trading in Australian water markets?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 60(2), April.
    3. Adrian Fernandez‐Perez & Bart Frijns & Ivan Indriawan & Alireza Tourani‐Rad, 2019. "Surprise and dispersion: informational impact of USDA announcements," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 50(1), pages 113-126, January.
    4. Kurov, Alexander & Sancetta, Alessio & Wolfe, Marketa Halova, 2022. "Drift Begone! Release policies and preannouncement informed trading," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
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    6. Gao, Jun & Gao, Xiang & Gu, Chen, 2023. "Forecasting European stock volatility: The role of the UK," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

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