We analyze short-term futures oil pricing over the 2003-2016 time-period in order to analyze the bubble-like dynamics, which characterizes the 2007-2009 years according to a large body of recent literature. Our investigation, based on a flexible three-agent model (hedgers, fundamentalist...

The interaction between rational hedgers and informed oil traders is parameterized and tested empirically with the help of a complex non linear smooth transition regime shift CCC-GARCH procedure. In spite of their gyrations, futures price changes are usually self-correcting. Well informed...