IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v40y2013icp176-182.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of trader positions in spot and futures prices for WTI

Author

Listed:
  • Kolodziej, Marek
  • Kaufmann, Robert K.

Abstract

We extend the analysis of causal relations between trader positions and oil prices and the process of price discovery by estimating a cointegrating vector autoregression (CVAR) model that expands the cash-and-carry relation between spot and futures prices to quantify long- and short-run relations among oil prices, trader positions, interest rates, and oil inventories. Results indicate that oil inventories and trader positions are needed to generate cointegration between spot and futures prices. The presence of trader positions and oil inventories suggest that both play a role in price discovery. Furthermore, the cointegrating relation for price loads into the equation for both oil prices and trader positions. This suggests a bi-directional simultaneous adjustment process between oil prices and trader positions. This expands the unidirectional causal relation from oil prices to trader positions that is generated by previous studies. Additional results suggest that price discovery occurs in the market for heavily traded near-month futures contracts, but discovery for thin far-month futures markets occurs in the spot market. Together, these results suggest mechanisms by which speculation could affect oil prices but the results presented here are moot regarding their effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Kolodziej, Marek & Kaufmann, Robert K., 2013. "The role of trader positions in spot and futures prices for WTI," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 176-182.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:40:y:2013:i:c:p:176-182
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2013.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988313001151
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2013.06.002?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. Gulen, S. Gurcan, 1998. "Efficiency in the crude oil futures market," Journal of Energy Finance & Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 13-21.
    2. Cifarelli, Giulio & Paladino, Giovanna, 2010. "Oil price dynamics and speculation: A multivariate financial approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 363-372, March.
    3. Regnier, Eva, 2007. "Oil and energy price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 405-427, May.
    4. Greenslade, Jennifer V. & Hall, Stephen G. & Henry, S. G. Brian, 2002. "On the identification of cointegrated systems in small samples: a modelling strategy with an application to UK wages and prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(9-10), pages 1517-1537, August.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    8. M. McAleer & J. M. Sequeira, 2004. "Efficient estimation and testing of oil futures contracts in a mutual offset system," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(13), pages 953-962.
    9. 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.
    10. Juselius, Katarina, 2006. "The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199285679, Decembrie.
    11. Robert S. Pindyck, 2001. "The Dynamics of Commodity Spot and Futures Markets: A Primer," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-30.
    12. Moosa, Imad A. & Al-Loughani, Nabeel E., 1994. "Unbiasedness and time varying risk premia in the crude oil futures market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 99-105, April.
    13. Johansen, Soren, 1992. "Determination of Cointegration Rank in the Presence of a Linear Trend," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 383-397, August.
    14. Sanders, Dwight R. & Boris, Keith & Manfredo, Mark, 2004. "Hedgers, funds, and small speculators in the energy futures markets: an analysis of the CFTC's Commitments of Traders reports," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 425-445, May.
    15. Fattouh, Bassam, 2010. "The dynamics of crude oil price differentials," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 334-342, March.
    16. Silvério, Renan & Szklo, Alexandre, 2012. "The effect of the financial sector on the evolution of oil prices: Analysis of the contribution of the futures market to the price discovery process in the WTI spot market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1799-1808.
    17. Weiner, Robert J., 2002. "Sheep in wolves' clothing? Speculators and price volatility in petroleum futures," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 391-400.
    18. Kaufmann, Robert K. & Ullman, Ben, 2009. "Oil prices, speculation, and fundamentals: Interpreting causal relations among spot and futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 550-558, July.
    19. Sims, Christopher A & Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1990. "Inference in Linear Time Series Models with Some Unit Roots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 113-144, January.
    20. K. Geert Rouwenhorst & Ke Tang, 2012. "Commodity Investing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 447-467, October.
    21. Maslyuk, Svetlana & Smyth, Russell, 2009. "Cointegration between oil spot and future prices of the same and different grades in the presence of structural change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1687-1693, May.
    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. 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.
    2. Jorge Toro & Aarón Garavito & David Camilo López & Enrique Montes, 2015. "El choque petrolero y sus implicaciones en la economía colombiana," Borradores de Economia 906, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    3. Deeney, Peter & Cummins, Mark & Dowling, Michael & Bermingham, Adam, 2015. "Sentiment in oil markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 179-185.
    4. Ali, Sajid & Raza, Naveed & Vinh Vo, Xuan & Le, Van, 2022. "Modelling the joint dynamics of financial assets using MGARCH family models: Insights into hedging and diversification strategies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. You-How Go & Wee-Yeap Lau, 2019. "Palm oil spot-futures relation: Evidence from unrefined and refined products," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 65(3), pages 133-142.
    6. Kolodziej, Marek & Kaufmann, Robert K. & Kulatilaka, Nalin & Bicchetti, David & Maystre, Nicolas, 2014. "Crude oil: Commodity or financial asset?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 216-223.
    7. Bravo Caro, José Manuel & Golpe, Antonio A. & Iglesias, Jesús & Vides, José Carlos, 2020. "A new way of measuring the WTI – Brent spread. Globalization, shock persistence and common trends," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Robert Socha & Piotr Wdowiński, 2018. "Crude oil price and speculative activity: a cointegration analysis," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 10(3), pages 263-304, September.
    9. Bhattacherjee, Purba & Mishra, Sibanjan & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2023. "Does market sentiment and global uncertainties influence ESG-oil nexus? A time-frequency analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).

    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. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Davide Ciferri & Alessandro Girardi, 2014. "Time-Varying Spot and Futures Oil Price Dynamics," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(1), pages 78-97, February.
    2. Remzi Uctum & Georges Prat, 2021. "Modeling ex-ante risk premia in the oil market," Post-Print hal-03513121, HAL.
    3. 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.
    4. Beckmann, Joscha & Belke, Ansgar & Czudaj, Robert, 2014. "Regime-dependent adjustment in energy spot and futures markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 400-409.
    5. Kaufmann, Robert K., 2011. "The role of market fundamentals and speculation in recent price changes for crude oil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 105-115, January.
    6. Silvério, Renan & Szklo, Alexandre, 2012. "The effect of the financial sector on the evolution of oil prices: Analysis of the contribution of the futures market to the price discovery process in the WTI spot market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1799-1808.
    7. 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).
    8. Prat, Georges & Uctum, Remzi, 2011. "Modelling oil price expectations: Evidence from survey data," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 236-247, June.
    9. Mamatzakis, E & Remoundos, P, 2010. "Threshold Cointegration in BRENT crude futures market," MPRA Paper 19978, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Wei Yang & Ai Han & Yongmiao Hong & Shouyang Wang, 2016. "Analysis of crisis impact on crude oil prices: a new approach with interval time series modelling," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(12), pages 1917-1928, December.
    11. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Wang, Zi-Yi, 2013. "Investigating the price discovery and risk transfer functions in the crude oil and gasoline futures markets: Some empirical evidence," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-228.
    12. Mamatzakis, E. & Remoundos, P., 2011. "Testing for adjustment costs and regime shifts in BRENT crude futures market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1000-1008, May.
    13. Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2013. "Speculative trading and WTI crude oil futures price movement: An empirical analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 394-402.
    14. Julien Chevallier, 2013. "Price relationships in crude oil futures: new evidence from CFTC disaggregated data," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 15(2), pages 133-170, April.
    15. Jorge Antunes & Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana & Rossana Riccardi & Yong Tan & Peter Wanke, 2022. "Unveiling endogeneity and temporal dependence in energy prices and demand in Iberian countries: a stochastic hidden Markov model approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(1), pages 191-229, June.
    16. Shrestha, Keshab, 2014. "Price discovery in energy markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 229-233.
    17. Tokic, Damir, 2012. "Speculation and the 2008 oil bubble: The DCOT Report analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 541-550.
    18. Wang, Yudong & Wu, Chongfeng, 2013. "Are crude oil spot and futures prices cointegrated? Not always!," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 641-650.
    19. Kyrtsou, Catherine & Mikropoulou, Christina & Papana, Angeliki, 2016. "Does the S&P500 index lead the crude oil dynamics? A complexity-based approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 239-246.
    20. 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.

    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:40:y:2013:i:c:p:176-182. 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.