A new measure of hedging pressure in commodity options markets—commercial hedgers’ net short option exposure—predicts option returns and changes in the slope of implied volatility curves. Puts are more expensive, and calls are cheaper, when values of option hedging pressure are greater....

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of the financialization of commodity futures markets by studying the conditional volatility of long-short commodity portfolios and their conditional correlations with traditional assets (stocks and bonds). Using several groups of trading...