Amid the rise in commodity investing that started in 2003, many have asked whether commodities now move more in sync with traditional financial assets. Using daily, weekly and monthly data from January 1991 through November 2008, we provide evidence largely to the contrary. First, we apply...

The coincident rise in crude oil prices and increased number of financial participants in the crude oil futures market from 2000-2008 has led to allegations that “speculators” drive crude oil prices. As crude oil futures peaked at $147/bbl in July 2008, the role of speculators came under...

We analyze the role of hedge fund, swap dealer and arbitrageur activity in a Markov regime-switching model between high volatility bear markets and low volatility bull markets for crude oil, corn and Mini-S&P500 index futures. We find that these institutional positions reflect fundamental...

Abstract: The coincident rise in crude oil prices and increased numbers of financial participants in the crude oil futures market from 2000-2008 has led to allegations that "speculators" drive crude oil prices. As crude oil futures peaked at $147/bbl in July 2008, the role of speculators came...

We employ data over 2005-2009 which uniquely identify categories of traders to test whether speculators like hedge funds and swap dealers cause price changes or volatility. We find little evidence that speculators destabilize financial markets. To the contrary, speculative trading activity...