This paper generalizes the notion of mean-variance spanning as de- ned in the seminal paper of Huberman & Kandel (1987) in three di- mensions. It is shown how regression techniques can be used to test for spanning for more general classes of utility functions, in case some as- sets are nontraded, and in case some of the assets are zero-investment securities such as futures contracts. We then implement these tech- niques to test whether a basic set of three international stock indices, the S&P 500, the FAZ (Germany), and the FTSE (UK), span a set of commodity and currency futures contracts. Depending on whether mean-variance, logarithmic, or power utility functions are considered, the hypothesis of spanning can be rejected for most futures contracts considered. If an investor has a position in a nontraded commodity, then the hypothesis of spanning can almost always be rejected for fu- tures contracts on that commodity for all utility functions considered. For currency futures this is only the case for a power utility function that re ects a preference for skewness. Finally, if we explicitly take into account net futures positions of large traders that are known to have predictive power for futures returns, the hypothesis of spanning can be rejected for most futures contracts.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research in its series Discussion Paper with number
83.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)