IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v134y2024ics0140988324002482.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More is better? The impact of predictor choice on the INE oil futures volatility forecasting

Author

Listed:
  • Fu, Tong
  • Huang, Dasen
  • Feng, Lingbing
  • Tang, Xiaoping

Abstract

This paper aims to address the predictor choice issue in forecasting volatility of INE oil futures by a comprehensive comparative study with a large number of predictive variables and applying machine learning models along with their interpretability tools. The main finding is that the selection of predictors is crucial for improving volatility forecasting accuracy, but it is not always the case that including more predictive variables leads to better forecasting results, even for machine learning models. Specifically, this paper has five major findings: (1) A few variables can significantly improve forecasting accuracy independently, but their contribution is limited. (2) Increasing the number of predictors from specific categories (market sentiment indicators, crude oil futures prices from other exchanges, and energy market indicators) helps to enhance forecasting accuracy. (3) Low-frequency variables have a weak effect on improving the daily volatility. (4) Ensemble tree models perform better than traditional machine learning models based on variable selection with dynamic parameter optimization, even without much parameter tuning. The above findings still hold true under a series of robustness tests and economic value assessments. These findings provide substantial evidence for addressing the issues of model and variable choice in crude oil futures volatility forecasting.

Suggested Citation

  • Fu, Tong & Huang, Dasen & Feng, Lingbing & Tang, Xiaoping, 2024. "More is better? The impact of predictor choice on the INE oil futures volatility forecasting," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:134:y:2024:i:c:s0140988324002482
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988324002482
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107540?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhang, Li & Wang, Lu & Wang, Xunxiao & Zhang, Yaojie & Pan, Zhigang, 2022. "How macro-variables drive crude oil volatility? Perspective from the STL-based iterated combination method," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Inoue, Atsushi & Jin, Lu & Rossi, Barbara, 2017. "Rolling window selection for out-of-sample forecasting with time-varying parameters," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 196(1), pages 55-67.
    3. Hamid, Alain & Heiden, Moritz, 2015. "Forecasting volatility with empirical similarity and Google Trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 62-81.
    4. Gong, Xu & Lin, Boqiang, 2018. "The incremental information content of investor fear gauge for volatility forecasting in the crude oil futures market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 370-386.
    5. Tim Bollerslev & Benjamin Hood & John Huss & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2018. "Risk Everywhere: Modeling and Managing Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(7), pages 2729-2773.
    6. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold, 2007. "Roughing It Up: Including Jump Components in the Measurement, Modeling, and Forecasting of Return Volatility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 701-720, November.
    7. Jiqian Wang & Xiaozhu Guo & Xueping Tan & Julien Chevallier & Feng Ma, 2023. "Which exogenous driver is informative in forecasting European carbon volatility: Bond, commodity, stock or uncertainty?," Post-Print halshs-04250316, HAL.
    8. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1992. "A Simple Nonparametric Test of Predictive Performance," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(4), pages 561-565, October.
    9. Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2017. "Forecasting oil price realized volatility using information channels from other asset classes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 28-49.
    10. Wen, Fenghua & Gong, Xu & Cai, Shenghua, 2016. "Forecasting the volatility of crude oil futures using HAR-type models with structural breaks," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 400-413.
    11. Fong, Wai Mun & See, Kim Hock, 2002. "A Markov switching model of the conditional volatility of crude oil futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 71-95, January.
    12. Peter R. Hansen & Asger Lunde & James M. Nason, 2011. "The Model Confidence Set," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 453-497, March.
    13. Christoffersen, Peter & Feunou, Bruno & Jeon, Yoontae, 2015. "Option valuation with observable volatility and jump dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(S2), pages 101-120.
    14. Fulvio Corsi, 2009. "A Simple Approximate Long-Memory Model of Realized Volatility," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 174-196, Spring.
    15. Liu, Shan & Li, Ziwei, 2023. "Macroeconomic attention and oil futures volatility prediction," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    16. Xuan Yao & Xiaofeng Hui & Kaican Kang, 2021. "Can night trading sessions improve forecasting performance of gold futures' volatility in China?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(5), pages 849-860, August.
    17. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    18. Liu, Yang & Han, Liyan & Xu, Yang, 2021. "The impact of geopolitical uncertainty on energy volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    19. Lv, Wendai, 2018. "Does the OVX matter for volatility forecasting? Evidence from the crude oil market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 492(C), pages 916-922.
    20. John Elder & Apostolos Serletis, 2010. "Oil Price Uncertainty," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 1137-1159, September.
    21. Dutta, Anupam & Bouri, Elie & Saeed, Tareq, 2021. "News-based equity market uncertainty and crude oil volatility," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    22. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    23. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-1069, June.
    24. Lu, Xinjie & Ma, Feng & Li, Haibo & Wang, Jianqiong, 2023. "INE oil futures volatility prediction: Exchange rates or international oil futures volatility?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    25. Cheong, Chin Wen, 2009. "Modeling and forecasting crude oil markets using ARCH-type models," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2346-2355, June.
    26. Wei, Yu & Wang, Yudong & Huang, Dengshi, 2010. "Forecasting crude oil market volatility: Further evidence using GARCH-class models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1477-1484, November.
    27. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "M5 accuracy competition: Results, findings, and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1346-1364.
    28. Guo, Xiaozhu & Huang, Dengshi & Li, Xiafei & Liang, Chao, 2023. "Are categorical EPU indices predictable for carbon futures volatility? Evidence from the machine learning method," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 672-693.
    29. Liu, Lily Y. & Patton, Andrew J. & Sheppard, Kevin, 2015. "Does anything beat 5-minute RV? A comparison of realized measures across multiple asset classes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 293-311.
    30. Aloui, Riadh & Gupta, Rangan & Miller, Stephen M., 2016. "Uncertainty and crude oil returns," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 92-100.
    31. Wei Zhang & Kai Yan & Dehua Shen, 2021. "Can the Baidu Index predict realized volatility in the Chinese stock market?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-31, December.
    32. Don Bredin & John Elder & Stilianos Fountas, 2010. "The Effects of Uncertainty about Oil Prices in G-7," Working Papers 200840, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    33. Meng, Fanyi & Liu, Li, 2019. "Analyzing the economic sources of oil price volatility: An out-of-sample perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 476-486.
    34. Wang, Jiqian & Guo, Xiaozhu & Tan, Xueping & Chevallier, Julien & Ma, Feng, 2023. "Which exogenous driver is informative in forecasting European carbon volatility: Bond, commodity, stock or uncertainty?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    35. Tang, Yusui & Ma, Feng, 2023. "The volatility of natural resources implications for sustainable development: Crude oil volatility prediction based on the multivariate structural regime switching," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    36. Yu, Lean & Zha, Rui & Stafylas, Dimitrios & He, Kaijian & Liu, Jia, 2020. "Dependences and volatility spillovers between the oil and stock markets: New evidence from the copula and VAR-BEKK-GARCH models," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    37. Liu, Jing & Ma, Feng & Yang, Ke & Zhang, Yaojie, 2018. "Forecasting the oil futures price volatility: Large jumps and small jumps," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 321-330.
    38. Ding, Liang & Vo, Minh, 2012. "Exchange rates and oil prices: A multivariate stochastic volatility analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 15-37.
    39. Zhang, Yaojie & Ma, Feng & Wang, Yudong, 2019. "Forecasting crude oil prices with a large set of predictors: Can LASSO select powerful predictors?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 97-117.
    40. Wei, Yu & Liang, Chao & Li, Yan & Zhang, Xunhui & Wei, Guiwu, 2020. "Can CBOE gold and silver implied volatility help to forecast gold futures volatility in China? Evidence based on HAR and Ridge regression models," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    41. Andrew J. Patton & Kevin Sheppard, 2015. "Good Volatility, Bad Volatility: Signed Jumps and The Persistence of Volatility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 683-697, July.
    42. Lu, Xinjie & Ma, Feng & Wang, Jiqian & Zhu, Bo, 2021. "Oil shocks and stock market volatility: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    43. Pan, Zhiyuan & Wang, Yudong & Wu, Chongfeng & Yin, Libo, 2017. "Oil price volatility and macroeconomic fundamentals: A regime switching GARCH-MIDAS model," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 130-142.
    44. Wei, Yu & Liu, Jing & Lai, Xiaodong & Hu, Yang, 2017. "Which determinant is the most informative in forecasting crude oil market volatility: Fundamental, speculation, or uncertainty?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 141-150.
    45. Pan, Zhiyuan & Shuai, Jiangyu & Liang, Zhilei & Sun, Xianchao, 2022. "Jump dynamics, spillover effect and option valuation," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    46. Filis, George, 2010. "Macro economy, stock market and oil prices: Do meaningful relationships exist among their cyclical fluctuations?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 877-886, July.
    47. Jian Yang & Yinggang Zhou, 2020. "Return and volatility transmission between China's and international crude oil futures markets: A first look," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(6), pages 860-884, June.
    48. Giot, Pierre & Laurent, Sebastien, 2003. "Market risk in commodity markets: a VaR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 435-457, September.
    49. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema, 2007. "Modelling oil price volatility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6549-6553, December.
    50. Adlai Fisher & Charles Martineau & Jinfei Sheng, 2022. "Macroeconomic Attention and Announcement Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(11), pages 5057-5093.
    51. Chao Liang & Yu Wei & Xiafei Li & Xuhui Zhang & Yifeng Zhang, 2020. "Uncertainty and crude oil market volatility: new evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(27), pages 2945-2959, May.
    52. Xu, Yanyan & Liu, Jing & Ma, Feng & Chu, Jielei, 2024. "Liquidity and realized volatility prediction in Chinese stock market: A time-varying transitional dynamic perspective," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 543-560.
    53. Dias, Ishanka K. & Fernando, J.M. Ruwani & Fernando, P. Narada D., 2022. "Does investor sentiment predict bitcoin return and volatility? A quantile regression approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    54. Sadorsky, Perry, 2006. "Modeling and forecasting petroleum futures volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 467-488, July.
    55. Fang, Jianchun & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi-Keung Marco & Lu, Zhou, 2020. "The impact of Baidu Index sentiment on the volatility of China's stock markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    56. Li, Xiafei & Liang, Chao & Chen, Zhonglu & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Forecasting crude oil volatility with uncertainty indicators: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    57. Kang, Sang Hoon & Kang, Sang-Mok & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2009. "Forecasting volatility of crude oil markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 119-125, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feng, Lingbing & Rao, Haicheng & Lucey, Brian & Zhu, Yiying, 2024. "Volatility forecasting on China's oil futures: New evidence from interpretable ensemble boosting trees," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1595-1615.
    2. Zhang, Yaojie & Ma, Feng & Wei, Yu, 2019. "Out-of-sample prediction of the oil futures market volatility: A comparison of new and traditional combination approaches," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1109-1120.
    3. Bissoondoyal-Bheenick, Emawtee & Brooks, Robert & Do, Hung Xuan & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "Exploiting the heteroskedasticity in measurement error to improve volatility predictions in oil and biofuel feedstock markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Chen, Yixiang & Ma, Feng & Zhang, Yaojie, 2019. "Good, bad cojumps and volatility forecasting: New evidence from crude oil and the U.S. stock markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 52-62.
    5. Bonnier, Jean-Baptiste, 2022. "Forecasting crude oil volatility with exogenous predictors: As good as it GETS?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    6. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Xiafei Li & Yu Wei & Xiaodan Chen & Feng Ma & Chao Liang & Wang Chen, 2022. "Which uncertainty is powerful to forecast crude oil market volatility? New evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 4279-4297, October.
    8. Li, Xiafei & Liang, Chao & Chen, Zhonglu & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Forecasting crude oil volatility with uncertainty indicators: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Scarcioffolo, Alexandre R. & Etienne, Xiaoli L., 2021. "Regime-switching energy price volatility: The role of economic policy uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 336-356.
    10. Lu, Xinjie & Ma, Feng & Xu, Jin & Zhang, Zehui, 2022. "Oil futures volatility predictability: New evidence based on machine learning models11All the authors contribute to the paper equally," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. Gong, Xu & Lin, Boqiang, 2018. "The incremental information content of investor fear gauge for volatility forecasting in the crude oil futures market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 370-386.
    12. Chen, Wang & Ma, Feng & Wei, Yu & Liu, Jing, 2020. "Forecasting oil price volatility using high-frequency data: New evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 1-12.
    13. Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2017. "Forecasting oil price realized volatility using information channels from other asset classes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 28-49.
    14. Liu, Yuanyuan & Niu, Zibo & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir & Yin, Libo & Zhang, Hongwei, 2022. "Forecasting the volatility of crude oil futures: The role of oil investor attention and its regime switching characteristics under a high-frequency framework," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PA).
    15. Lyócsa, Štefan & Todorova, Neda & Výrost, Tomáš, 2021. "Predicting risk in energy markets: Low-frequency data still matter," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(PA).
    16. Zhang, Yaojie & Lei, Likun & Wei, Yu, 2020. "Forecasting the Chinese stock market volatility with international market volatilities: The role of regime switching," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    17. Riza Demirer & Konstantinos Gkillas & Rangan Gupta & Christian Pierdzioch, 2022. "Risk aversion and the predictability of crude oil market volatility: A forecasting experiment with random forests," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(8), pages 1755-1767, August.
    18. Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2022. "Oil price volatility forecasts: What do investors need to know?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    19. Zhang, Yaojie & Wahab, M.I.M. & Wang, Yudong, 2023. "Forecasting crude oil market volatility using variable selection and common factor," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 486-502.
    20. Chen, Zhonglu & Ye, Yong & Li, Xiafei, 2022. "Forecasting China's crude oil futures volatility: New evidence from the MIDAS-RV model and COVID-19 pandemic," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    INE oil futures market; Volatility forecasting; Factor selection; Ensemble tree model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
    • Q47 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy Forecasting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:134:y:2024:i:c:s0140988324002482. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.