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Trend Following, Risk Parity and Momentum in Commodity Futures

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  • Andrew Clare
  • James Seaton
  • Peter N. Smith
  • Stephen Thomas

Abstract

We show that combining momentum and trend following strategies for individual commodity futures can lead to portfolios which offer attractive risk adjusted returns which are superior to simple momentum strategies; when we expose these returns to a wide array of sources of systematic risk we find that robust alpha survives. Experimenting with risk parity portfolio weightings has limited impact on our results though in particular is beneficial to long-short strategies; the marginal impact of applying trend following methods far outweighs momentum and risk parity adjustments in terms of risk-adjusted returns and limiting downside risk.Overall this leads to an attractive strategy for investing in commodity futures and emphasises the importance of trend following as an investment strategy in the commodity futures context.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Clare & James Seaton & Peter N. Smith & Stephen Thomas, 2012. "Trend Following, Risk Parity and Momentum in Commodity Futures," Discussion Papers 12/28, Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:12/28
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2017. "Time series momentum and contrarian effects in the Chinese stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 483(C), pages 309-318.
    2. Tung-Lam Dao & Trung-Tu Nguyen & Cyril Deremble & Yves Lemp'eri`ere & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Potters, 2016. "Tail protection for long investors: Trend convexity at work," Papers 1607.02410, arXiv.org.
    3. Andrew Clare & James Seaton & Peter N. Smith & Stephen Thomas, 2015. "Carry and Trend Following Returns in the Foreign Exchange Market," Discussion Papers 15/07, Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Yang, Yurun & Göncü, Ahmet & Pantelous, Athanasios A., 2018. "Momentum and reversal strategies in Chinese commodity futures markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 177-196.
    5. Ham, Hyuna & Ryu, Doojin & Webb, Robert I., 2022. "The effects of overnight events on daytime trading sessions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    7. Miffre, Joëlle, 2016. "Long-short commodity investing: A review of the literature," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-13.
    8. Han, Yufeng & Hu, Ting & Yang, Jian, 2016. "Are there exploitable trends in commodity futures prices?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 214-234.
    9. Y. Lemp'eri`ere & C. Deremble & P. Seager & M. Potters & J. P. Bouchaud, 2014. "Two centuries of trend following," Papers 1404.3274, arXiv.org.
    10. Hyuna Ham & Hoon Cho & Hyeongjun Kim & Doojin Ryu, 2019. "Time‐series momentum in China's commodity futures market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(12), pages 1515-1528, December.
    11. Benjamin R. Auer, 2021. "Have trend-following signals in commodity futures markets become less reliable in recent years?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 35(4), pages 533-553, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    trend following; momentum; risk parity; equally-weighted; portfolios; commodity futures.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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