The purpose of this report is to improve understanding of USDA crop forecasting methods, performance and market impact. A review of USDA's forecasting procedures and methodology confirmed the objectivity and consistency of the forecasting process over time. No changes in methodology occurred in...

The purpose of this research report is to evaluate the pricing performance of market advisory services for the 1995-2004 corn and soybean crops.Five basic indicators of performance are applied to advisory program prices and revenues over 1995-2004. Results show that advisory program prices fall...

The purpose of this research report is to evaluate the pricing performance of market advisory services for the 1995-2003 corn and soybean crops. Market and farmer benchmarks are developed for the performance evaluations. Two market benchmarks are specified in order to test the fragility of...

The purpose of this report is to review the evidence on the profitability of technical analysis. The empirical literature is categorized into two groups, quot;earlyquot; and quot;modernquot; studies, according to the characteristics of testing procedures. Early studies indicated that technical...

Analysis of a unique data set of 1,400 U.S. crop producers using a mixture-modeling framework shows that the likelihood of Marketing Advisory Services (MAS) use is, among others, driven by the perceived performance of MAS in terms of regarding return and risk reduction, the match between the MAS...

This study uses a unique data set from the CFTC to investigate the impact of trading by large hedge funds and CTAs in 13 futures markets. Regression results show there is a small but positive relationship between the trading volume of large hedge funds and CTAs and market volatility. However, a...

The informational value of USDA corn and soybean production forecasts is investigated for the period 1971-1992. Three tests of informational content are considered: i) a relative forecast accuracy test, ii) a price reaction test, and iii) a willingness-to-pay test. Overall, the results suggest...

The focus of this study is the habitual speculator in commodity futures markets. The speculator's activity broadens a market, creates essential liquidity, and performs an irreplaceable pricing function. Working knowledge of the profiles and motivations of habitual speculators is essential to...

The D4 RIN is the tradable compliance certificate for the biomass-based diesel mandate in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Understanding the price dynamics of the D4 RIN is important for understanding the RFS because its price sets a ceiling on the ethanol RIN (D6) and because some observers...

Annual rebalancing of the S&P GSCI index provides a novel and strong identification to estimate the shape of supply curves for commodity futures contracts. Using the 24 commodities included in the S&P GSCI for 2004–2017, we show that cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) reach a peak of 59 basis...