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What Does the Convenience Yield Curve Tell Us about the Crude Oil Market?

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  • Ron Alquist
  • Gregory Bauer
  • Antonio Diez de los Rios

Abstract

Using the prices of crude oil futures contracts, we construct the term structure of crude oil convenience yields out to one-year maturity. The crude oil convenience yield can be interpreted as the interest rate, denominated in barrels of oil, for borrowing a single barrel of oil, and it measures the value of storing crude oil over the borrowing period. We show that the convenience yield curve is well explained by a level and a slope factor. Consistent with the theory of storage, convenience yields have predictive power over future crude oil inventories, production, global real economic activity and the price of oil.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:14-42
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    2. Valenti, Daniele & Manera, Matteo & Sbuelz, Alessandro, 2020. "Interpreting the oil risk premium: Do oil price shocks matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    3. Valenti, Daniele & Bastianin, Andrea & Manera, Matteo, 2023. "A weekly structural VAR model of the US crude oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    4. Gonzato, Luca & Sgarra, Carlo, 2021. "Self-exciting jumps in the oil market: Bayesian estimation and dynamic hedging," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. 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.
    6. Ron Alquist & Reinhard Ellwanger & Jianjian Jin, 2020. "The effect of oil price shocks on asset markets: Evidence from oil inventory news," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(8), pages 1212-1230, August.
    7. 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).
    8. Nestor Le Clech & Carmen Fillat‐Castejón, 2017. "International aggregate agricultural supply for grain and oilseed: The effects of efficiency and technological change," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 569-585, September.
    9. Cepni, Oguzhan & Gupta, Rangan & Karahan, Cenk C. & Lucey, Brian, 2022. "Oil price shocks and yield curve dynamics in emerging markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 613-623.
    10. Babacar Seck & Robert J. Elliott, 2021. "Regime Switching Entropic Risk Measures on Crude Oil Pricing," Papers 2112.13041, arXiv.org.
    11. Clements, Adam & Shield, Cody & Thiele, Stephen, 2019. "Which oil shocks really matter in equity markets?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 134-141.
    12. Efthymios G. Pavlidis & Ivan Paya & David A. Peel, 2018. "Using Market Expectations to Test for Speculative Bubbles in the Crude Oil Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(5), pages 833-856, August.
    13. Martínez, Beatriz & Torró, Hipòlit, 2023. "Theory of storage implications in the European natural gas market," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).

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    Keywords

    Asset Pricing; International topics;

    JEL classification:

    • C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • G - Financial Economics
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

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