The paper develops a price discovery model for commodity futures markets that accounts for two forms of limits to arbitrage caused by transaction costs and noise trader risk. Four market regimes are identified: (1) effective arbitrage, (2) transaction costs but no noise trader risk, (3) no...

This paper analyses futures prices for four energy commodities (light sweet crude oil, heating oil, gasoline and natural gas) and five agricultural commodities (corn, oats, soybean oil, soybeans and wheat), over the period 1986-2010. Using CCC and DCC multivariate GARCH models, we find that...

The complexity of managing physical and financial risk throughout the commodity production, processing and merchandising chain presents numerous challenges. To solve this problem commercials are increasingly turning to Energy and Commodity Transaction Risk Management (E/CTRM) systems. Still,...

This paper is a report of the research on the effect of speculation on commodities and food since deregulation. Econometrics can be applied to show how speculation influences price and vice versa. However, there is no clear empirical picture. In this paper, we examine the reasons for the lack of...

In this paper we examine the extent newer developments affect the economic processes of the market and put financial markets at risk. We also analyze if the financial market regulations are sufficient to limit the systemic risk they cause. The biggest Shortcoming of the recent reforms to the...

Long-only commodity futures returns have been very disappointing over the last decade, leading some to wonder if it was a mistake to invest in commodities. The poor performance is the result of poor “income returns” and not of falling commodity prices. This observation may be surprising for...

This paper extends the work of Pindyck [1] by taking into consideration a large class family of different utility functions of economic agents. As in Pindyck [1], instead of considering a social utility function that is characterized by constant relative risk aversion (C.R.R.A), we use the...

In a well-functioning futures market, the futures price at expiration equals the price of the underlying asset. This condition failed to hold in grain markets for most of 2005-10. During this period, futures contracts expired up to 35% above the cash grain price. We develop a rational...

In assessing drivers of commodity prices and volatility at this stage of the current super-cycle in commodities (year 12 of a projected 25), it is vital to understand that production cost is a fundamental. Moreover, marginal production costs are among the most powerful drivers of commodity...