Recent accusations against speculators in general and long-only commodity index funds inparticular, include: increasing market volatility, distorting historical price relationships, andfueling a rapid increase and decrease in commodity inflation. Some researchers have argued thatthese market...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures andover–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the resultthat prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded fundamental values at the peak.The...

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a number of agencies that are involved in collecting, analyzing, forecasting, and disseminating information about the production and consumption of the corn and soybean crops (Spilka, 1983; Vogel and Bange, 1999; Lusk, 2013). Market participants...

Recent accusations against speculators in general and long-only commodity index funds in particular, include: increasing market volatility, distorting historical price relationships, and fueling a rapid increase and decrease in commodity inflation. Some researchers have argued that these market...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures and over–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the result that prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded...

The forecasting content of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitments of Traders (COT) report is investigated. Bivariate Granger causality tests show very little evidence that traders’ positions are useful in forecasting (leading) returns in 10 agricultural futures...

An empirical methodology is developed for statistically testing the hedging effectiveness among competing futures contracts. The presented methodology is based on the encompassing principle, widely used in the forecasting literature, and applied here to minimum variance hedging regressions....

Analysts’ forecasting of earnings per share for multiple quarter time horizons of eleven agribusiness companies is evaluated using a mean absolute scaled error and a direct test. Results illustrate that unique information is consistently found. Rational and efficient expectations are formed...

Decisions made by publicly traded agribusinesses impact suppliers, processors, farmers, and even rural communities. Professional analysts’ estimates of earnings per share (EPS) provide a unique source of information regarding firm-level financial performance. Incorporating a battery of tests,...

One-step-ahead forecasts of quarterly beef, pork, and poultry production are examined and evaluated based on traditional criteria for optimality-efficiency and unbiasedness-as well as their performance versus a univariate time-series model. However, traditional regression methodology for...