IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v150y2025ics0140988325006267.html

Sailing the stormy seas: Energy hedge funds strategy innovation, and market uncertainties

Author

Listed:
  • French, Joseph J.
  • Gurdgiev, Constantin
  • Lucey, Brian M.
  • Shin, Seungho

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between idiosyncratic volatility of energy hedge funds and a range of uncertainty measures relevant to the global energy markets. Using GARCH-family models, we find a consistent negative relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and economic, climate, and energy market uncertainties. This evidence points to specialist hedge funds developing innovative hedging capabilities during energy markets transformation toward the net zero and idiosyncratic volatility associated with it, with commodity strategies demonstrating a stronger effect. Our analysis reveals non-linear interactions: increased climate policy uncertainty during high economic policy uncertainty periods is associated with larger decreases in idiosyncratic volatility. Additionally, simultaneous success of bond and commodity trend-following strategies corresponds with substantial reductions in idiosyncratic volatility, suggesting synergistic risk-management benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • French, Joseph J. & Gurdgiev, Constantin & Lucey, Brian M. & Shin, Seungho, 2025. "Sailing the stormy seas: Energy hedge funds strategy innovation, and market uncertainties," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:150:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325006267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108799
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988325006267
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108799?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lutz Kilian, 2016. "The Impact of the Shale Oil Revolution on U.S. Oil and Gasoline Prices," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 185-205.
    2. 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.
    3. Dang, Tam Hoang-Nhat & Nguyen, Canh Phuc & Lee, Gabriel S. & Nguyen, Binh Quang & Le, Thuy Thu, 2023. "Measuring the energy-related uncertainty index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    4. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    5. Elie, Bouri & Naji, Jalkh & Dutta, Anupam & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2019. "Gold and crude oil as safe-haven assets for clean energy stock indices: Blended copulas approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 544-553.
    6. Tareq Saeed & Elie Bouri & Dang Khoa Tran, 2020. "Hedging Strategies of Green Assets against Dirty Energy Assets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Agarwal, Vikas & Ruenzi, Stefan & Weigert, Florian, 2017. "Tail risk in hedge funds: A unique view from portfolio holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 610-636.
    8. Fahmy, Hany, 2022. "Clean energy deserves to be an asset class: A volatility-reward analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    9. Christoffersen, Peter & Lunde, Asger & Olesen, Kasper V., 2019. "Factor Structure in Commodity Futures Return and Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 1083-1115, June.
    10. Henriques, Irene & Sadorsky, Perry, 2018. "Investor implications of divesting from fossil fuels," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 30-44.
    11. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa O., 2014. "Macroeconomic risk and hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 1-19.
    12. Wealer, B. & Bauer, S. & Hirschhausen, C.v. & Kemfert, C. & Göke, L., 2021. "Investing into third generation nuclear power plants - Review of recent trends and analysis of future investments using Monte Carlo Simulation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Carrion, Allen & Tuttle, Laura & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2016. "Liquidity, resiliency and market quality around predictable trades: Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 142-166.
    14. Zakoian, Jean-Michel, 1994. "Threshold heteroskedastic models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 931-955, September.
    15. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    16. Junttila, Juha & Pesonen, Juho & Raatikainen, Juhani, 2018. "Commodity market based hedging against stock market risk in times of financial crisis: The case of crude oil and gold," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 255-280.
    17. Nikkinen, Jussi & Rothovius, Timo, 2019. "Energy sector uncertainty decomposition: New approach based on implied volatilities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 141-148.
    18. Liu, Pan & Power, Gabriel J. & Vedenov, Dmitry, 2021. "Fair-weather Friends? Sector-specific volatility connectedness and transmission," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 712-736.
    19. Tiantian Liu & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2021. "Does Investor Sentiment Affect Clean Energy Stock? Evidence from TVP-VAR-Based Connectedness Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-21, June.
    20. Foglia, Matteo & Palomba, Giulio & Tedeschi, Marco, 2023. "Disentangling the geopolitical risk and its effects on commodities. Evidence from a panel of G8 countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    21. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A., 2011. "The risk in hedge fund strategies: Theory and evidence from long/short equity hedge funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 547-569, September.
    22. Suleyman Basak & Anna Pavlova, 2016. "A Model of Financialization of Commodities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1511-1556, August.
    23. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    24. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A, 2001. "The Risk in Hedge Fund Strategies: Theory and Evidence from Trend Followers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 313-341.
    25. Christian Urom & Gideon Ndubuisi & Jude Ozor, 2021. "Economic activity, and financial and commodity markets’ shocks: An analysis of implied volatility indexes," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 165, pages 51-66.
    26. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    27. Hasbrouck, Joel & Saar, Gideon, 2013. "Low-latency trading," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 646-679.
    28. Urom, Christian & Ndubuisi, Gideon & Ozor, Jude, 2021. "Economic activity, and financial and commodity markets’ shocks: An analysis of implied volatility indexes," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 51-66.
    29. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    30. William Rogers, 1994. "Regression standard errors in clustered samples," Stata Technical Bulletin, StataCorp LLC, vol. 3(13).
    31. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    32. Ciner, Cetin & Gurdgiev, Constantin & Lucey, Brian M., 2013. "Hedges and safe havens: An examination of stocks, bonds, gold, oil and exchange rates," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 202-211.
    33. Geng, Jiang-Bo & Liu, Changyu & Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong, 2021. "Do oil price changes really matter for clean energy returns?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    34. Kuang, Wei, 2021. "Which clean energy sectors are attractive? A portfolio diversification perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    35. Racicot, François-Éric & Théoret, Raymond, 2019. "Hedge fund return higher moments over the business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 73-97.
    36. Song, Yingjie & Ji, Qiang & Du, Ya-Juan & Geng, Jiang-Bo, 2019. "The dynamic dependence of fossil energy, investor sentiment and renewable energy stock markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    37. Muhammad Anas & Elie Bouri & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad, 2025. "A Bibliometric analysis of literature on hedge and safe haven assets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 1852-1882, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Noori, Mohammad & Hitaj, Asmerilda, 2023. "Dissecting hedge funds' strategies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Nicolau, Juan Luis & Sharma, Abhinav, 2022. "A review of research into drivers of firm value through event studies in tourism and hospitality: Launching the Annals of Tourism Research curated collection on drivers of firm value through event studies in tourism and hospitality," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    3. Racicot, François-Éric & Théoret, Raymond & Gregoriou, Greg N., 2021. "The response of hedge fund higher moment risk to macroeconomic and illiquidity shocks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 289-318.
    4. Kuang, Wei, 2021. "Which clean energy sectors are attractive? A portfolio diversification perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    5. François-Éric Racicot & Raymond Théoret, 2022. "Tracking market and non-traditional sources of risks in procyclical and countercyclical hedge fund strategies under extreme scenarios: a nonlinear VAR approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, December.
    6. Baris Kocaarslan & Ugur Soytas, 2025. "How do the reserve currency and uncertainties in major markets affect the uncertainty of oil prices over time?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 2016-2041, April.
    7. Faiza Siddiqui & Yusheng Kong & Hyder Ali & Salma Naz, 2024. "Energy-Related Uncertainty and Idiosyncratic Return Volatility: Implications for Sustainable Investment Strategies in Chinese Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-39, August.
    8. Paul Handro & Bogdan Dima, 2024. "Analyzing Financial Markets Efficiency: Insights from a Bibliometric and Content Review," Journal of Financial Studies, Institute of Financial Studies, vol. 16(9), pages 119-175, May.
    9. Tareq Saeed & Elie Bouri & Dang Khoa Tran, 2020. "Hedging Strategies of Green Assets against Dirty Energy Assets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, June.
    10. Argyropoulos, Christos & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Vrontos, Spyridon, 2025. "Downside risk and hedge fund returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    11. Wen, Xiaoqian & Xie, Yuxin & Pantelous, Athanasios A., 2022. "Extreme price co-movement of commodity futures and industrial production growth: An empirical evaluation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    12. Muhammad Surajo Sanusi, 2017. "Investigating the sources of Black’s leverage effect in oil and gas stocks," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1318812-131, January.
    13. Ali, Sara & Badshah, Ihsan & Demirer, Riza, 2023. "Anti-herding by hedge funds and its implications for expected returns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 31-48.
    14. Ahmed, Walid M.A. & Sleem, Mohamed A.E., 2023. "Short- and long-run determinants of the price behavior of US clean energy stocks: A dynamic ARDL simulations approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    15. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    16. Hitz, Lukas & Mustafi, Ismail H. & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2022. "The pricing of volatility risk in the US equity market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    17. Dragomirescu-Gaina, Catalin & Philippas, Dionisis & Tsionas, Mike G., 2021. "Trading off accuracy for speed: Hedge funds' decision-making under uncertainty," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. Alexander Dickerson & Christian Julliard & Philippe Mueller, 2026. "The Co-Pricing Factor Zoo," Papers 2604.04430, arXiv.org.
    19. Bali, Turan G. & Weigert, Florian, 2021. "Hedge funds and the positive idiosyncratic volatility effect," CFR Working Papers 21-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    20. Joshua Odutola Omokehinde & Matthew Adeolu Abata & Olukayode Russell & Stephen Oseko Migiro & Christopher Somoye, 2017. "Asymmetric Information and Volatility of Stock Returns in Nigeria," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 9(3), pages 220-231.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics

    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:eee:eneeco:v:150:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325006267. 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/eneco .

    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.