The fruit and vegetable industry does not have a risk management instrument or a well-structured price discovery system, such as commodity futures contracts, to aid in the marketing and management of its price risk. Since the 1980s, financial futures contracts based on indexes of stocks,...

A regime-switching model for analysis of market integration has been developed that incorporates rate of trade information. An application of the methods to United States–China soybean trade demonstrates that the extended trade information allows better interpretation of market conditions....

This study uses the newly available data from the CFTC to investigate the market impact of futures trading by large hedge funds and CTAs. Regression results show that there is a positive relationship between the trading volume of large hedge funds and CTAs and market volatility. However, a...

Previous attempts at identifying and estimating a time-varying risk premium in the cocoa futures market yielded conflicting results. Using a longer series that includes the most recent cash and futures data, the existence of a time-varying risk premium in the cocoa futures market is...

In a seminal article, Samuelson (1965) proposes the maturity effect that volatility of futures prices should increase as futures contract approaches maturity. This study provides new evidence on the maturity effect by examining a more extensive set of futures contracts than previous studies and...

This dissertation examines the impact of a reduction in the minimum price increment on market quality and price impact in the 3 Year Commonwealth Treasury Bond Futures contract. Prior to the tick size reduction, the minimum tick was one basis point. However, as of December 15, 2006, the minimum...

We study the difference in the volatility dynamics of CBOT corn, soybeans, and oatsfutures prices across different delivery horizons via the smoothed Bayesian estimatorof Karali, Dorfman, and Thurman (2010). We show that the futures price volatilitiesin these markets are affected by the...

The commodity bull cycle of 2006-2008 and subsequent dramatic price decline have been asource of hardship for traditional commodity market participants such as producers andmerchant/shippers. The usefulness of futures markets has been called into question, especiallygiven that some market...

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/10/10.

The S&P 500 Index futures contract is traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that isregulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The S&P 500 Index optionscontract is traded on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange that is regulated by theSecurities and Exchange Commission. The...