IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jfutmk/v26y2006i11p1039-1057.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Causality in futures markets

Author

Listed:
  • Henry L. Bryant
  • David A. Bessler
  • Michael S. Haigh

Abstract

This study tests causal hypotheses emanating from theories of futures markets by utilizing methods appropriate for disproving causal relationships with observational data. The hedging pressure theory of futures markets risk premiums, the generalized version of the normal backwardation theory of Keynes, is rejected. Theories predicting that the activity levels of speculators or uninformed traders affect levels of price volatility, either positively or negatively, are also rejected. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:1039–1057, 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Henry L. Bryant & David A. Bessler & Michael S. Haigh, 2006. "Causality in futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1039-1057, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jfutmk:v:26:y:2006:i:11:p:1039-1057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shalen, Catherine T, 1993. "Volume, Volatility, and the Dispersion of Beliefs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 405-434.
    2. Hirshleifer, David, 1990. "Hedging Pressure and Futures Price Movements in a General Equilibrium Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 411-428, March.
    3. Eric Chang & Ray Y. Chou & Edward F. Nelling, 2000. "Market volatility and the demand for hedging in stock index futures," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 105-125, February.
    4. Stein, Jeremy C, 1987. "Informational Externalities and Welfare-Reducing Speculation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1123-1145, December.
    5. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    6. DeJong, David N, et al, 1992. "Integration versus Trend Stationarity in Time Series," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 423-433, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Michael S. Haigh & David A. Bessler, 2004. "Causality and Price Discovery: An Application of Directed Acyclic Graphs," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1099-1121, October.
    9. Carter, Colin A & Rausser, Gordon C & Schmitz, Andrew, 1983. "Efficient Asset Portfolios and the Theory of Normal Backwardation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 319-331, April.
    10. Selva Demiralp & Kevin D. Hoover, 2003. "Searching for the Causal Structure of a Vector Autoregression," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(s1), pages 745-767, December.
    11. Clark, Peter K, 1973. "A Subordinated Stochastic Process Model with Finite Variance for Speculative Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(1), pages 135-155, January.
    12. Lester G. Telser, 1958. "Futures Trading and the Storage of Cotton and Wheat," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66, pages 233-233.
    13. David Hirshleifer, 1988. "Residual Risk, Trading Costs, and Commodity Futures Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(2), pages 173-193.
    14. Danthine, Jean-Pierre, 1978. "Information, futures prices, and stabilizing speculation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 79-98, February.
    15. Tauchen, George E & Pitts, Mark, 1983. "The Price Variability-Volume Relationship on Speculative Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(2), pages 485-505, March.
    16. Epps, Thomas W & Epps, Mary Lee, 1976. "The Stochastic Dependence of Security Price Changes and Transaction Volumes: Implications for the Mixture-of-Distributions Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 305-321, March.
    17. Karpoff, Jonathan M., 1987. "The Relation between Price Changes and Trading Volume: A Survey," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 109-126, March.
    18. Hartzmark, Michael L, 1987. "Returns to Individual Traders of Futures: Aggregate Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1292-1306, December.
    19. Rockwell, Charles S., 1967. "Normal Backwardation, Forecasting, and the Return to Commodity Futures Traders," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 7(Supplemen), pages 1-24.
    20. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. Black, Fischer, 1976. "The pricing of commodity contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 167-179.
    22. Swanson, N.R. & Granger, C.W.J., 1994. "Impulse Response Functions Based on Causal Approach to Residual Orthogonalization in Vector Autoregressions," Papers 9-94-1, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
    23. Chang, Eric C, 1985. "Returns to Speculators and the Theory of Normal Backwardation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 193-208, March.
    24. Dusak, Katherine, 1973. "Futures Trading and Investor Returns: An Investigation of Commodity Market Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(6), pages 1387-1406, Nov.-Dec..
    25. Bessembinder, Hendrik, 1992. "Systematic Risk, Hedging Pressure, and Risk Premiums in Futures Markets," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(4), pages 637-667.
    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. Sung Je Byun, 2017. "Speculation in Commodity Futures Markets, Inventories and the Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    2. Ji, Qiang & Bahloul, Walid & Geng, Jiang-Bo & Gupta, Rangan, 2020. "Trading behaviour connectedness across commodity markets: Evidence from the hedgers’ sentiment perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    3. Çınar, Gökhan & Uzmay, Ayse, 2017. "Does Fear (Vix Index) Incite Volatility In Food Prices?," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 5(2), April.
    4. Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders, 2011. "Index Funds, Financialization, and Commodity Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(1), pages 1-31.
    5. Qingjie Zhou & Panpan Zhu & You Wu & Yinpeng Zhang, 2022. "Research on the Volatility of the Cotton Market under Different Term Structures: Perspective from Investor Attention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-20, November.
    6. Gary B. Gorton & Fumio Hayashi & K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 2013. "The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 35-105.
    7. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin, 2010. "A speculative bubble in commodity futures prices? Cross‐sectional evidence," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(1), pages 25-32, January.
    8. Jabir Ali & Kriti Bardhan Gupta, 2011. "Efficiency in agricultural commodity futures markets in India," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 71(2), pages 162-178, August.
    9. Gary B. Gorton & Fumio Hayashi & K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 2013. "The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 35-105.
    10. Adam E. Clements & Neda Todorova, 2016. "Information Flow, Trading Activity and Commodity Futures Volatility," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 88-104, January.
    11. Hoang, Nam & Grieb, Terrance, 2018. "Hedging Positions, Basis, and Futures Risk Premium: A Disaggregated Data Analysis on US Wheat Markets," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273799, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Christian Koziol & Tilo Treuter, 2019. "How do speculators in agricultural commodity markets impact production decisions and commodity prices? A theoretical analysis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(3), pages 718-743, June.
    13. Lee A. Smales, 2022. "Trading Behavior in Agricultural Commodity Futures around the 52-Week High," Commodities, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-15, June.
    14. Delphine Lautier & Franck Raynaud & Michel Robe, 2017. "Information Flows across the Futures Term Structure: Evidence from Crude Oil Prices," Post-Print hal-01781761, HAL.
    15. Mayer, Herbert & Rathgeber, Andreas & Wanner, Markus, 2017. "Financialization of metal markets: Does futures trading influence spot prices and volatility?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 300-316.
    16. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Floros, Christos & Kizys, Renatas, 2016. "Dynamic spillover effects in futures markets: UK and US evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 406-418.
    17. Slutskin, L., 2017. "Graphical Statistical Methods for Studying Causal Effects. Bayesian Networks," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 12-30.
    18. Georg Lehecka, 2015. "Do hedging and speculative pressures drive commodity prices, or the other way round?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 575-603, September.
    19. Christina Sklibosios Nikitopoulos & Alice Carole Thomas & Jianxin Wang, 2024. "Hedging pressure and oil volatility: Insurance versus liquidity demands," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 252-280, February.
    20. Ziran Li & Dermot J. Hayes, 2022. "The hedging pressure hypothesis and the risk premium in the soybean reverse crush spread," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 428-445, March.
    21. Dwight R. Sanders and Scott H. Irwin, 2013. "Measuring Index Investment in Commodity Futures Markets," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    22. Boyd, Naomi E. & Harris, Jeffrey H. & Li, Bingxin, 2018. "An update on speculation and financialization in commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 91-104.
    23. Aliaga Lordemann, Javier & Mora-García, Claudio & Mulder, Nanno, 2021. "Speculation and price volatility in the coffee market," Documentos de Proyectos 46923, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    24. Tore S. Kleppe & Atle Oglend, 2019. "Can limits‐to‐arbitrage from bounded storage improve commodity term‐structure modeling?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(7), pages 865-889, July.

    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. Ahmet E. Kocagil & Kudret Topyan, 1997. "An empirical note on demand for speculation and futures risk premium: A Kalman Filter application," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 77-93.
    2. Kocagil, Ahmet E. & Topyan, Kudret, 1997. "An empirical note on demand for speculation and futures risk premium: A Kalman Filter application," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 77-93.
    3. Loïc Maréchal, 2023. "A tale of two premiums revisited," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 580-614, May.
    4. Shafiqur Rahman & M. Shahid Ebrahim, 2005. "The Futures Pricing Puzzle," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 35, Society for Computational Economics.
    5. Guillermo Llorente & Jiang Wang, 2020. "Trading and information in futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(8), pages 1231-1263, August.
    6. Nicole M. Moran & Scott H. Irwin & Philip Garcia, 2020. "Who Wins and Who Loses? Trader Returns and Risk Premiums in Agricultural Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 611-652, December.
    7. Changyun Wang, 2003. "The behavior and performance of major types of futures traders," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 1-31, January.
    8. Acharya, Viral V. & Lochstoer, Lars A. & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2013. "Limits to arbitrage and hedging: Evidence from commodity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 441-465.
    9. Carter, Colin A. & Revoredo-Giha, Cesar, 2023. "Financialization and speculators risk premia in commodity futures markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Ing-Haw Cheng & Wei Xiong, 2014. "Financialization of Commodity Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 419-441, December.
    11. Frans A. De Roon & Theo E. Nijman & Chris Veld, 2000. "Hedging Pressure Effects in Futures Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1437-1456, June.
    12. Go, You-How & Lau, Wee-Yeap, 2020. "The impact of global financial crisis on informational efficiency: Evidence from price-volume relation in crude palm oil futures market," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    13. Chionis, Dionysios & MacDonald, Ronald, 1997. "Some tests of market microstructure hypotheses in the foreign exchange market," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 203-229, October.
    14. Bhaumik, S. & Karanasos, M. & Kartsaklas, A., 2016. "The informative role of trading volume in an expanding spot and futures market," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 24-40.
    15. Miffre, Joëlle, 2016. "Long-short commodity investing: A review of the literature," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-13.
    16. Aris Kartsaklas, 2018. "Trader Type Effects On The Volatility‐Volume Relationship Evidence From The Kospi 200 Index Futures Market," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 226-250, July.
    17. Chang, Eric C. & Michael Pinegar, J. & Schachter, Barry, 1997. "Interday variations in volume, variance and participation of large speculators," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 797-810, June.
    18. Basu, Devraj & Miffre, Joëlle, 2013. "Capturing the risk premium of commodity futures: The role of hedging pressure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2652-2664.
    19. Shahzad, Hassan & Duong, Huu Nhan & Kalev, Petko S. & Singh, Harminder, 2014. "Trading volume, realized volatility and jumps in the Australian stock market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 414-430.
    20. Koubaa, Yosra & Slim, Skander, 2019. "The relationship between trading activity and stock market volatility: Does the volume threshold matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 168-184.

    More about this item

    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:wly:jfutmk:v:26:y:2006:i:11:p:1039-1057. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0270-7314/ .

    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.