IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v41y2014icp177-190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do net positions in the futures market cause spot prices of crude oil?

Author

Listed:
  • Ding, Haoyuan
  • Kim, Hyung-Gun
  • Park, Sung Y.

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed sharp increases in the price of crude oil. There are two possible explanations for these increases: dramatic increases in financial firms' position in the oil futures market and recent increases in oil prices from changes in economic fundamentals. This paper examines the causal relationship between the net financial position and the crude oil price by using three types of Granger non-causality tests: the classical Granger non-causality test, a robust Granger non-causality test and a Granger non-causality test in quantiles. The empirical results provide some evidence of causality from the net financial position to the spot price of crude oil. In addition, futures prices serve as a transmission mechanism underlying the causal relationship between the net financial position and the crude oil price.

Suggested Citation

  • Ding, Haoyuan & Kim, Hyung-Gun & Park, Sung Y., 2014. "Do net positions in the futures market cause spot prices of crude oil?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 177-190.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:41:y:2014:i:c:p:177-190
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2014.05.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999314001758
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2014.05.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ron Alquist & Olivier Gervais, 2013. "The Role of Financial Speculation in Driving the Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, , vol. 34(3), pages 35-54, July.
    2. Toda, Hiro Y & Phillips, Peter C B, 1993. "Vector Autoregressions and Causality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(6), pages 1367-1393, November.
    3. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(1 (Spring), pages 215-283.
    4. Bassam Fattouh, Lutz Kilian, and Lavan Mahadeva, 2013. "The Role of Speculation in Oil Markets: What Have We Learned So Far?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    5. Frankel, Jeff & Froot, Ken, 1986. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt1972q8wm, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    6. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    7. 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.
    8. Ellen, Saskia ter & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2010. "Oil price dynamics: A behavioral finance approach with heterogeneous agents," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1427-1434, November.
    9. Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R. & Merrin, Robert P., 2009. "Devil or Angel? The Role of Speculation in the Recent Commodity Price Boom (and Bust)," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 41(2), August.
    10. Mosconi, Rocco & Giannini, Carlo, 1992. "Non-causality in Cointegrated Systems: Representation Estimation and Testing," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 399-417, August.
    11. He, Xue-Zhong & Westerhoff, Frank H., 2005. "Commodity markets, price limiters and speculative price dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1577-1596, September.
    12. Bekiros, Stelios D. & Diks, Cees G.H., 2008. "The relationship between crude oil spot and futures prices: Cointegration, linear and nonlinear causality," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2673-2685, September.
    13. Chuang, Chia-Chang & Kuan, Chung-Ming & Lin, Hsin-Yi, 2009. "Causality in quantiles and dynamic stock return-volume relations," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1351-1360, July.
    14. Andrews, Donald W K, 1993. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 821-856, July.
    15. Garbade, Kenneth D & Silber, William L, 1983. "Price Movements and Price Discovery in Futures and Cash Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(2), pages 289-297, May.
    16. Toda, Hiro Y. & Yamamoto, Taku, 1995. "Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1-2), pages 225-250.
    17. Hommes, Cars H., 2006. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1109-1186, Elsevier.
    18. Anne E. Peck, 1985. "Futures Markets: Their Economic Role," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 968570, September.
    19. Brock, William A. & Hommes, Cars H., 1998. "Heterogeneous beliefs and routes to chaos in a simple asset pricing model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1235-1274, August.
    20. Mohsin S. Khan, 2009. "The 2008 Oil Price "Bubble"," Policy Briefs PB09-19, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    21. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    22. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-153, March.
    23. Cootner, Paul H., 1967. "Speculation and Hedging," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 7(Supplemen), pages 1-42.
    24. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    25. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2006. "Beauty Contests and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 719-752.
    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. Haoyuan Ding & Yuying Jin & Cong Qin & Jiezhou Ying, 2020. "Tail Causality between Crude Oil Price and RMB Exchange Rate," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(3), pages 116-134, May.
    2. Dedi, Valentina & Mandilaras, Alex, 2022. "Trader positions and the price of oil in the futures market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 448-460.
    3. Li, Haiqi & Zhong, Wanling & Park, Sung Y., 2016. "Generalized cross-spectral test for nonlinear Granger causality with applications to money–output and price–volume relations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 661-671.
    4. Mensi, Walid & Brahim, Mariem & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2024. "Time-varying causality and correlations between spot and futures prices of natural gas, crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Jena, Sangram Keshari & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Distributional predictability between commodity spot and futures: Evidence from nonparametric causality-in-quantiles tests," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 615-628.
    6. Li, Xin & Ma, Jian & Wang, Shouyang & Zhang, Xun, 2015. "How does Google search affect trader positions and crude oil prices?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 162-171.
    7. Li, Haiqi & Kim, Myeong Jun & Park, Sung Y., 2016. "Nonlinear relationship between crude oil price and net futures positions: A dynamic conditional distribution approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 217-225.
    8. Zhifang He & Fangzhao Zhou, 2018. "Time-varying and asymmetric effects of the oil-specific demand shock on investor sentiment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, August.
    9. Apostolakis, George N. & Floros, Christos & Gkillas, Konstantinos & Wohar, Mark, 2024. "Volatility spillovers across the spot and futures oil markets after news announcements," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    10. Yanhong Feng & Xiaolei Wang & Shuanglian Chen & Yanqiong Liu, 2022. "Impact of Oil Financialization on Oil Price Fluctuation: A Perspective of Heterogeneity," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-20, June.
    11. Nicolau, Mihaela & Palomba, Giulio, 2015. "Dynamic relationships between spot and futures prices. The case of energy and gold commodities," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 130-143.
    12. Li, Haiqi & Kim, Hyung-Gun & Park, Sung Y., 2015. "The role of financial speculation in the energy future markets: A new time-varying coefficient approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 112-122.
    13. Miroslava Zavadska & Lucía Morales & Joseph Coughlan, 2018. "The Lead–Lag Relationship between Oil Futures and Spot Prices—A Literature Review," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-22, October.
    14. Xie, Xiaoyu & Zhu, Heliang, 2021. "The role of gold futures in mitigating the impact of economic uncertainty on spot prices: Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).

    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. Ding, Haoyuan & Kim, Hyung-Gun & Park, Sung Y., 2016. "Crude oil and stock markets: Causal relationships in tails?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-69.
    2. Morana, Claudio, 2013. "Oil price dynamics, macro-finance interactions and the role of financial speculation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 206-226.
    3. Awan, Obaid A., 2019. "Price discovery or noise: The role of arbitrage and speculation in explaining crude oil price behaviour," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    4. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    5. Nyakabawo, Wendy & Miller, Stephen M. & Balcilar, Mehmet & Das, Sonali & Gupta, Rangan, 2015. "Temporal causality between house prices and output in the US: A bootstrap rolling-window approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 55-73.
    6. Liu, Li & Wang, Yudong & Wu, Chongfeng & Wu, Wenfeng, 2016. "Disentangling the determinants of real oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 363-373.
    7. Ederington, Louis H. & Fernando, Chitru S. & Hoelscher, Seth A. & Lee, Thomas K. & Linn, Scott C., 2019. "Characteristics of petroleum product prices: A survey," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Khalid Khan & Jiluo Sun & Sinem Derindere Koseoglu & Ashfaq U. Rehman, 2021. "Revisiting Bitcoin Price Behavior Under Global Economic Uncertainty," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.
    9. Kyritsis, Evangelos & Andersson, Jonas, 2019. "Causality in quantiles and dynamic relations in energy markets: (De)tails matter," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    10. Hommes, Cars & in ’t Veld, Daan, 2017. "Booms, busts and behavioural heterogeneity in stock prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 101-124.
    11. Haoyuan Ding & Yuying Jin & Cong Qin & Jiezhou Ying, 2020. "Tail Causality between Crude Oil Price and RMB Exchange Rate," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(3), pages 116-134, May.
    12. Ing-Haw Cheng & Wei Xiong, 2014. "Financialization of Commodity Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 419-441, December.
    13. Bassam Fattouh, Lutz Kilian, and Lavan Mahadeva, 2013. "The Role of Speculation in Oil Markets: What Have We Learned So Far?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    14. Leila Dagher & Ibrahim Jamali & Nasser Badra, 2020. "The Predictive Power of Oil and Commodity Prices for Equity Markets," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Stéphane Goutte & Khaled Guesmi (ed.), Risk Factors and Contagion in Commodity Markets and Stocks Markets, chapter 3, pages 47-82, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    16. Joëts, Marc, 2015. "Heterogeneous beliefs, regret, and uncertainty: The role of speculation in energy price dynamics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 247(1), pages 204-215.
    17. Li, Haiqi & Kim, Myeong Jun & Park, Sung Y., 2016. "Nonlinear relationship between crude oil price and net futures positions: A dynamic conditional distribution approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 217-225.
    18. Goetz, Cole & Miljkovic, Dragan & Barabanov, Nikita, 2021. "New empirical evidence in support of the theory of price volatility of storable commodities under rational expectations in spot and futures markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    19. repec:agr:journl:v:3(604):y:2015:i:3(604):p:75-92 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Li, Haiqi & Kim, Hyung-Gun & Park, Sung Y., 2015. "The role of financial speculation in the energy future markets: A new time-varying coefficient approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 112-122.
    21. Feng-Li Lin & Mei-Chih Wang & Hsien-Hung Kung, 2020. "Housing and Stock Market Nexus in the US," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 114-130.

    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:eee:ecmode:v:41:y:2014:i:c:p:177-190. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.