We find excess buying just below round numbers ($X.99) and excess selling just above round numbers ($X.01) using tick data of 152 million West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures transactions from January 1996 to October 2015. The round number effects were stronger in a regime of open outcry...

This paper addresses the question of whether the oil price spike of 2003-2008 was a bubble. We document and discuss what is known about the level of speculation in the paper oil market. We then analyze the dynamics of the term structure of futures prices, both during the earlier period of...