Recent studies provide contradictory evidence about the impact of speculation on commodity prices. Rather than directly evaluating this relationship we instead use a novel approach to assess if speculation can inform our choice of factor inclusion in modelling oil futures

Oil futures prices, which have undergone major changes, maintain an important research topic for academics. Oil prices, which tended to decline for political and economic reasons in the 1990s, fell to as low as 12 US dollars after the Asian Crisis, rising again in 2002. The oil prices, which...

Fat-tailed commodity price innovations are well-documented in the literature and long recognized as disruptive for consumers and producers, yet little is known about what factors drive such extreme events. Utilizing a wide range of factors from the economics and finance literature and quantile...

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...

Accusations of price manipulation in the silver and gold markets have emerged in recent years. In an effort to increase transparency, the London spot price “fixing” mechanism was recently changed from an opaque negotiation process among a small number of dealer banks to a more observable...

As a source of energy of biofuel and edible oil, the fluctuation of crude palm oil prices is the concern of producers and manufacturers. However, little is known about the impact of global financial crisis on informational efficiency of crude palm oil (CPO) futures market. Hence, this study aims...

Many believe that index fund investment was the main driver of the 2007-2008 spike in commodity futures prices. One group of empirical studies finds evidence that commodity index investment directly or indirectly had a substantial impact on commodity futures prices. However, the data and methods...