We analyze the role of hedge fund, swap dealer and arbitrageur activity in a Markov regime-switching model between high volatility bear markets and low volatility bull markets for crude oil, corn and Mini-S&P500 index futures. We find that these institutional positions reflect fundamental...

We employ data over 2005-2009 which uniquely identify categories of traders to test whether speculators like hedge funds and swap dealers cause price changes or volatility. We find little evidence that speculators destabilize financial markets. To the contrary, speculative trading activity...

We identify and explain a structural change in the relation between crude oil futures prices across contract maturities. As recently as 2001, near- and long-dated futures were priced as though traded in segmented markets. In 2002, however, the prices of one-year futures started to move more in...

The impact of news, events or volatility on the underlying market microstructure has been studied extensively in finance literature. Common to many of these studies is the arrival of "true" news. In this paper we use unique data on error trades that have occurred on the CBOT and CME and assess...

We test the prevalence, sources and effects of herding among large speculative traders in thirty U.S. futures markets over 2004-2009. Using unique U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data identifying daily trader positions we compare herding among hedge funds and floor market...