IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea14/170593.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Storage Rational When the Price is Expected to Decline? An Initial Study Using Data from U.S. Futures and Options Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Zulauf, Carl R.
  • Sanghyo, Kim

Abstract

The expected net return to storage is conventionally calculated as the expected change in price over the storage period minus the cost of storage. However, this value is almost always negative, thus raising the question why would anyone store. Numerous explanations have been proposed, but none is widely accepted. This study initiates a new line of investigation based upon the identification of the different options embedded in the holding of stocks. Specifically, the traditional calculation of the net return to storage is shown to be equivalent to the value of a put option minus the value of a call option. Both options mature at the end of the storage period and have a strike price equal to the initial storage period price plus the cost of storage. This conceptual derivation is confirmed using data from the U.S. corn and soybean options traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Suggested Citation

  • Zulauf, Carl R. & Sanghyo, Kim, 2014. "Is Storage Rational When the Price is Expected to Decline? An Initial Study Using Data from U.S. Futures and Options Markets," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170593, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea14:170593
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.170593
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/170593/files/AAEA2014_Zulauf_Kim.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.170593?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nikolaos Milonas & Thomas Henker, 2001. "Price spread and convenience yield behaviour in the international oil market," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 23-36.
    2. Williams, Jeffrey, 1987. "Futures Markets: A Consequences of Risk Aversion or Transactions Costs?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1000-1023, October.
    3. Bryan R. Routledge & Duane J. Seppi & Chester S. Spatt, 2000. "Equilibrium Forward Curves for Commodities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1297-1338, June.
    4. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 1988. "On competitive speculation under uncertainty: An alternative view of the inverse-carrying charge," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 117-128, May.
    5. Frechette, Darren L., 1999. "The Supply Of Storage Under Heterogeneous Expectations," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1-14, December.
    6. Brennan, Donna & Williams, Jeffrey & Wright, Brian D, 1997. "Convenience Yield without the Convenience: A Spatial-Temporal Interpretation of Storage under Backwardation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1009-1022, July.
    7. Frechette, Darren L., 1999. "The Supply of Storage under Heterogeneous Expectations," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(3), pages 461-474, December.
    8. Holbrook Working, 1948. "Theory of the Inverse Carrying Charge in Futures Markets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-28.
    9. Longstaff, Francis A, 1995. "How Much Can Marketability Affect Security Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1767-1774, December.
    10. Nikolaos T. Milonas & Stavros B. Thomadakis, 1997. "Convenience yields as call options: An empirical analysis," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 1-15, February.
    11. Working, Holbrook, 1933. "Price Relations Between July And September Wheat Futures At Chicago Since 1885," Wheat Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 9(06), March.
    12. Samuelson, Paul A, 1976. "Is Real-World Price a Tale Told by the Idiot of Chance?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(1), pages 120-123, February.
    13. Lester G. Telser, 1958. "Futures Trading and the Storage of Cotton and Wheat," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(3), pages 233-233.
    14. Darren L. Frechette, 2001. "Aggregation and the Nature of Price Expectations," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(1), pages 52-63.
    15. Milonas, Nikolaos T & Thomadakis, Stavros B, 1997. "Convenience Yield and the Option to Liquidate for Commodities with a Crop Cycle," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 24(2), pages 267-283.
    16. Litzenberger, Robert H & Rabinowitz, Nir, 1995. "Backwardation in Oil Futures Markets: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1517-1545, December.
    17. Sarahelen Thompson, 1986. "Returns to storage in coffee and cocoa futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 541-564, December.
    18. Gray, Roger W. & Peck, Anne E., 1981. "The Chicago Wheat Futures Market: Recent Problems in Historical Perspective," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 18(1), pages 1-28.
    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. repec:dau:papers:123456789/2274 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Zulauf, Carl R. & Zhou, Haijiang & Roberts, Matthew C., 2005. "Updating the Estimation of the Supply of Storage Model," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19122, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Lewis Evans & Graeme Guthrie, 2009. "How Options Provided by Storage Affect Electricity Prices," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 681-702, January.
    4. Evans, Lewis & Counsell, Kevin & Guthrie, Graeme, 2006. "Options Provided by Storage can Explain High Electricity Prices," Working Paper Series 3943, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    5. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19042 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Evans, Lewis & Counsell, Kevin & Guthrie, Graeme, 2006. "Options Provided by Storage can Explain High Electricity Prices," Working Paper Series 19042, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    7. Evans, Lewis & Guthrie, Graeme, 2007. "Commodity Price Behavior With Storage Frictions," Working Paper Series 3966, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    8. Stepanek, Christian & Walter, Matthias & Rathgeber, Andreas, 2013. "Is the convenience yield a good indicator of a commodity's supply risk?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 395-405.
    9. 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).
    10. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19065 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Evans, Lewis & Guthrie, Graeme, 2007. "Commodity Price Behavior With Storage Frictions," Working Paper Series 19065, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    12. Ron Alquist & Lutz Kilian, 2010. "What do we learn from the price of crude oil futures?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 539-573.
    13. Secomandi, Nicola & Seppi, Duane J., 2014. "Real Options and Merchant Operations of Energy and Other Commodities," Foundations and Trends(R) in Technology, Information and Operations Management, now publishers, vol. 6(3-4), pages 161-331, July.
    14. Gao, Lin & Hitzemann, Steffen & Shaliastovich, Ivan & Xu, Lai, 2022. "Oil volatility risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 456-491.
    15. Frechette, Darren L., 1999. "The Supply Of Storage Under Heterogeneous Expectations," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1-14, December.
    16. Brennan, Donna C. & Wright, Brian D., 1992. "Futures Markets, Storage and Convenience Yield," 1992 Conference (36th), February 10-13, 1992, Canberra, Australia 146425, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Amir Yaron & Leonid Kogan & Dmitry Livdan, 2004. "Futures Prices in a Production Economy with Investment Constraints," 2004 Meeting Papers 128, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Cesar Revoredo, 2000. "On The Solution Of The Dynamic Rational Expectations Commodity Storage Model In The Presence Of Stockholding By Speculators And Processors," Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 42, Society for Computational Economics.
    19. Ron Alquist & Gregory Bauer & Antonio Diez de los Rios, 2014. "What Does the Convenience Yield Curve Tell Us about the Crude Oil Market?," Staff Working Papers 14-42, Bank of Canada.
    20. Aaron Smith, 2005. "Partially overlapping time series: a new model for volatility dynamics in commodity futures," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 405-422, March.
    21. Aaron Smith, 2005. "Partially overlapping time series: a new model for volatility dynamics in commodity futures," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 405-422.
    22. Yoon, Byung-Sam & Brorsen, B. Wade, 2002. "Market Inversion in Commodity Futures Prices," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 459-476, December.
    23. Carter, Colin A. & Revoredo-Giha, Cesar, 2000. "The Interaction of Working and Speculative Commodity Stocks," 2000 Annual meeting, July 30-August 2, Tampa, FL 21820, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    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:ags:aaea14:170593. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.