How Effective Are Quantitative Methods in Forecasting Crude Oil Prices?

In this paper statistical and econometric modeling of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures prices is performed in order to forecast the crude futures prices one, two, and three months in advance. The price movement is modeled using multiple fundamental factors. The results are tabulated and compared for the effectiveness of the techniques. The price of crude oil has a cascading effect on other goods and services. Therefore, predicting crude oil price movement is an important requirement for any risk management strategy. Participants in the crude oil trading market generally include exploration and production companies (upstream E&P), speculators, down-stream operators and integrated producers. Crude oil price movement can be modeled using various computational methods, such as, ARIMA and VAR. These computational methods help to determine the models that best fit the available data and give an insight into the future movement. For this reason, computational methods are highly regarded within both the academic community and industry