IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cqe/wpaper/7718.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Long-Short Speculators on the Volatility of Agricultural Commodity Futures Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Martin T. Bohl
  • Christoph Sulewski

Abstract

Departing from the lively discussion about the Masters' hypothesis, this paper examines whether increasing activities of long-short speculators in commodity futures markets have a stabilizing or destabilizing impact on price movements. Our analysis covers five agricultural commodities traded in the US market over the period from 2006 to 2017. We conclude that long-short speculators do not destabilize commodity prices. Instead, we find evidence that activities of longshort speculators reduce volatility in the markets under scrutiny.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin T. Bohl & Christoph Sulewski, 2018. "The Impact of Long-Short Speculators on the Volatility of Agricultural Commodity Futures Prices," CQE Working Papers 7718, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    • Handle: RePEc:cqe:wpaper:7718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cqe/sites/cqe/files/CQE_Paper/cqe_wp_77_2018.pdf
    File Function: Version of October 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ron Alquist and Olivier Gervais, 2013. "The Role of Financial Speculation in Driving the Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    2. De Long, J Bradford, et al, 1990. "Positive Feedback Investment Strategies and Destabilizing Rational Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 379-395, June.
    3. Chevallier, Julien, 2009. "Carbon futures and macroeconomic risk factors: A view from the EU ETS," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 614-625, July.
    4. Büyükşahin, Bahattin & Robe, Michel A., 2014. "Speculators, commodities and cross-market linkages," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-70.
    5. Philipp Adämmer & Martin T. Bohl & Christian Gross, 2016. "Price Discovery in Thinly Traded Futures Markets: How Thin is Too Thin?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(9), pages 851-869, September.
    6. Creti, Anna & Joëts, Marc & Mignon, Valérie, 2013. "On the links between stock and commodity markets' volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 16-28.
    7. Hikaru Hanawa Peterson & William G. Tomek, 2005. "How much of commodity price behavior can a rational expectations storage model explain?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 33(3), pages 289-303, November.
    8. Bahattin Buyuksahin & Jeffrey H. Harris, 2011. "Do Speculators Drive Crude Oil Futures Prices?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 167-202.
    9. Brunetti, Celso & Büyükşahin, Bahattin & Harris, Jeffrey H., 2016. "Speculators, Prices, and Market Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(5), pages 1545-1574, October.
    10. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin & Robert P. Merrin, 2010. "The Adequacy of Speculation in Agricultural Futures Markets: Too Much of a Good Thing?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 32(1), pages 77-94.
    11. Yu-Chin Chen & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Barbara Rossi, 2010. "Can Exchange Rates Forecast Commodity Prices?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1145-1194.
    12. Miffre, Joëlle & Brooks, Chris, 2013. "Do long-short speculators destabilize commodity futures markets?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 230-240.
    13. Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk & Yingying Wu, 2015. "Booms and Busts in Commodity Markets: Bubbles or Fundamentals?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(10), pages 916-938, October.
    14. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    15. Xiaoliang Liu & Guenther Filler & Martin Odening, 2013. "Testing for speculative bubbles in agricultural commodity prices: a regime switching approach," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 73(1), pages 179-200, May.
    16. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14980 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Matteo Manera, Marcella Nicolini, and Ilaria Vignati, 2013. "Financial Speculation in Energy and Agriculture Futures Markets: A Multivariate GARCH Approach," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    18. Du, Xiaodong & Yu, Cindy L. & Hayes, Dermot J., 2011. "Speculation and volatility spillover in the crude oil and agricultural commodity markets: A Bayesian analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 497-503, May.
    19. Nazlioglu, Saban & Erdem, Cumhur & Soytas, Ugur, 2013. "Volatility spillover between oil and agricultural commodity markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 658-665.
    20. Jean-Paul Chavas & David Hummels & Brian D. Wright, 2014. "The Economics of Food Price Volatility," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number chav12-1, March.
    21. Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders, 2011. "Index Funds, Financialization, and Commodity Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(1), pages 1-31.
    22. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4210 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Taylor, Stephen J., 1987. "Forecasting the volatility of currency exchange rates," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 159-170.
    24. Chavas, Jean-Paul & Hummels, David & Wright, Brian D. (ed.), 2014. "The Economics of Food Price Volatility," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226128924, December.
    25. Brunetti, Celso & Reiffen, David, 2014. "Commodity index trading and hedging costs," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 153-180.
    26. Abby Kim, 2015. "Does Futures Speculation Destabilize Commodity Markets?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(8), pages 696-714, August.
    27. Etienne, Xiaoli L. & Irwin, Scott H. & Garcia, Philip, 2014. "Bubbles in food commodity markets: Four decades of evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 129-155.
    28. Christopher L. Gilbert & Simone Pfuderer, 2014. "The Role of Index Trading in Price Formation in the Grains and Oilseeds Markets," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 303-322, June.
    29. James D. Hamilton & Jing Cynthia Wu, 2015. "Effects Of Index‐Fund Investing On Commodity Futures Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 187-205, February.
    30. Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R., 2012. "Testing the Masters Hypothesis in commodity futures markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 256-269.
    31. Manera, Matteo & Nicolini, Marcella & Vignati, Ilaria, 2016. "Modelling futures price volatility in energy markets: Is there a role for financial speculation?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 220-229.
    32. Nazlioglu, Saban & Soytas, Ugur, 2012. "Oil price, agricultural commodity prices, and the dollar: A panel cointegration and causality analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1098-1104.
    33. Louis Ederington & Jae Ha Lee, 2002. "Who Trades Futures and How: Evidence from the Heating Oil Futures Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(2), pages 353-374, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Tröster, Bernhard & Gunter, Ulrich, 2022. "Trading for speculators: The role of physical actors in the financialization of coffee, cocoa and cotton value chains," Working Papers 68, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bohl, Martin T. & Sulewski, Christoph, 2019. "The impact of long-short speculators on the volatility of agricultural commodity futures prices," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    2. Haase, Marco & Seiler Zimmermann, Yvonne & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2016. "The impact of speculation on commodity futures markets – A review of the findings of 100 empirical studies," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15.
    3. Boyd, Naomi E. & Harris, Jeffrey H. & Li, Bingxin, 2018. "An update on speculation and financialization in commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 91-104.
    4. Martin T. Bohl & Martin Stefan, 2020. "Return dynamics during periods of high speculation in a thinly traded commodity market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 145-159, January.
    5. Manera, Matteo & Nicolini, Marcella & Vignati, Ilaria, 2016. "Modelling futures price volatility in energy markets: Is there a role for financial speculation?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 220-229.
    6. Ludwig, Michael, 2019. "Speculation and its impact on liquidity in commodity markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 532-547.
    7. Oliver Borgards & Robert L. Czudaj, 2023. "Long‐short speculator sentiment in agricultural commodity markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 3511-3528, October.
    8. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin, 2017. "Bubbles, Froth and Facts: Another Look at the Masters Hypothesis in Commodity Futures Markets," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 345-365, June.
    9. Haase, Marco & Huss, Matthias, 2018. "Guilty speculators? Range-based conditional volatility in a cross-section of wheat futures," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 29-46.
    10. Martin T. Bohl & Martin Stefan, 2018. "Return Dynamics During Periods of High Speculation in a Thinly-Traded Commodity Market," CQE Working Papers 7418, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    11. Go, You-How & Lau, Wee-Yeap, 2017. "Investor demand, market efficiency and spot-futures relation: Further evidence from crude palm oil," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 135-146.
    12. Matteo Manera & Marcella Nicolini & Ilaria Vignati, 2013. "Futures price volatility in commodities markets: The role of short term vs long term speculation," DEM Working Papers Series 042, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    13. Yan, Lei & Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R., 2018. "Mapping algorithms, agricultural futures, and the relationship between commodity investment flows and crude oil futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 486-504.
    14. Martin T. Bohl & Alexander Pütz & Pierre L. Siklos & Christoph Sulewski, 2021. "Information transmission under increasing political tensions—Evidence from the Berlin Produce Exchange 1887–1896," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(2), pages 226-244, February.
    15. Martin T. Bohl & Pierre L. Siklos & Claudia Wellenreuther, 2018. "Speculative activity and returns volatility of Chinese major agricultural commodity futures," CAMA Working Papers 2018-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    16. Fan, John Hua & Mo, Di & Zhang, Tingxi, 2022. "The “necessary evil” in Chinese commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    17. Bohl, Martin T. & Siklos, Pierre L. & Wellenreuther, Claudia, 2018. "Speculative activity and returns volatility of Chinese agricultural commodity futures," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 69-91.
    18. Derek Bunn, Julien Chevallier, Yannick Le Pen, and Benoit Sevi, 2017. "Fundamental and Financial Influences on the Co-movement of Oil and Gas Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    19. Bohl, Martin T. & Pütz, Alexander & Sulewski, Christoph, 2021. "Speculation and the informational efficiency of commodity futures markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    20. Marcella Nicolini & Matteo Manera & Ilaria Vignati, 2013. "Detecting speculation in volatility of commodities futures markets," EcoMod2013 5125, EcoMod.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commodity Futures Markets; GARCH models; Long-short Speculators;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cqe:wpaper:7718. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Susanne Deckwitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cqmuede.html .

    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.