Three attributes of futures contract behavior important for market performance—liquidity, volatility, and convergence—are investigated before and after the 2005 increase in speculative position limits for corn, soybean, and wheat contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade. The analysis of...

In recent years a number of market participants called into question the efficiency of the price discoverymechanism in commodity futures markets. They believe that speculators move commodity futures marketsaway from their fundamentals by distorting prices and exacerbating volatility. The smoking...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures andover–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the resultthat prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded fundamental values at the peak.The...