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Seasonality and the valuation of commodity options

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  • Back, Janis
  • Prokopczuk, Marcel
  • Rudolf, Markus

Abstract

Price movements in many commodity markets exhibit significant seasonal patterns. However, given an observed futures price, a deterministic seasonal component at the price level is not relevant for the pricing of commodity options. In contrast, this is not true for the seasonal pattern observed in the volatility of the commodity price. Analyzing an extensive sample of soybean, corn, heating oil and natural gas options, we find that seasonality in volatility is an important aspect to consider when valuing these contracts. The inclusion of an appropriate seasonality adjustment significantly reduces pricing errors in these markets and yields more improvement in valuation accuracy than increasing the number of stochastic factors.

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  • Back, Janis & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Rudolf, Markus, 2013. "Seasonality and the valuation of commodity options," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 273-290.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:273-290
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.08.025
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    4. Marc Bohmann & Vinay Patel, 2020. "Information Leakage in Energy Derivatives around News Announcements," Published Paper Series 2020-2, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    5. Spodniak, Petr & Bertsch, Valentin, 2017. "Determinants of power spreads in electricity futures markets: A multinational analysis," Papers WP580, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    6. Proelss, Juliane & Schweizer, Denis & Seiler, Volker, 2020. "The economic importance of rare earth elements volatility forecasts," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Belleh Fontem & Megan Price, 2021. "Joint client selection and contract design for a risk-averse commodity broker in a two-echelon supply chain," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 307(1), pages 111-138, December.
    8. Moreno, Manuel & Novales, Alfonso & Platania, Federico, 2019. "Long-term swings and seasonality in energy markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(3), pages 1011-1023.
    9. Füss, Roland & Mahringer, Steffen & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2015. "Electricity derivatives pricing with forward-looking information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 34-57.
    10. Kang, Boda & Nikitopoulos, Christina Sklibosios & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2020. "Economic determinants of oil futures volatility: A term structure perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Fathi Abid & Bilel Kaffel, 2018. "The extent of virgin olive-oil prices’ distribution revealing the behavior of market speculators," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 561-590, February.
    12. Nikkinen, Jussi & Rothovius, Timo, 2019. "Market specific seasonal trading behavior in NASDAQ OMX electricity options," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 16-29.
    13. Ma, Zonggang & Ma, Chaoqun & Wu, Zhijian, 2020. "Closed-form analytical solutions for options on agricultural futures with seasonality and stochastic convenience yield," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Farkas, Walter & Gourier, Elise & Huitema, Robert & Necula, Ciprian, 2017. "A two-factor cointegrated commodity price model with an application to spread option pricing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 249-268.
    15. Diewald, Laszlo & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2015. "Time-variations in commodity price jumps," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 72-84.
    16. Paschke, Raphael & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2020. "Curve momentum," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    17. Zakić, Vladimir & Kovačević, Vlado & Ivkov, Ivana & Mirović, Vera, 2014. "Importance Of Public Warehouse System For Financing Agribusiness Sector," Economics of Agriculture, Institute of Agricultural Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 1-15, December.
    18. Abel Azze & Bernardo D'Auria & Eduardo Garc'ia-Portugu'es, 2022. "Optimal exercise of American options under time-dependent Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes," Papers 2211.04095, arXiv.org.
    19. Ewald, Christian-Oliver & Haugom, Erik & Lien, Gudbrand & Størdal, Ståle & Wu, Yuexiang, 2022. "Trading time seasonality in commodity futures: An opportunity for arbitrage in the natural gas and crude oil markets?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    20. Arismendi, Juan C. & Back, Janis & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Paschke, Raphael & Rudolf, Markus, 2016. "Seasonal Stochastic Volatility: Implications for the pricing of commodity options," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 53-65.
    21. Chih-Chen Hsu & An-Sing Chen & Shih-Kuei Lin & Ting-Fu Chen, 2017. "The affine styled-facts price dynamics for the natural gas: evidence from daily returns and option prices," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 819-848, April.
    22. Mat Rahim, Siti Rohaya, 2014. "Asymmetric Cointegration: Barley and Crude Oil Price in United States," MPRA Paper 58447, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Anh Ngoc Lai & Constantin Mellios, 2016. "Valuation of commodity derivatives with an unobservable convenience yield," Post-Print halshs-01183166, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commodities; Seasonality; Options pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

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