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Energy futures prices and commodity index investment: New evidence from firm-level position data

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  • Sanders, Dwight R.
  • Irwin, Scott H.

Abstract

This study brings fresh data to the highly-charged debate about the price impact of long-only index investment in energy futures markets. We use high frequency daily position data for NYMEX crude oil, heating oil, RBOB gasoline, and natural gas that are available from a representative large commodity index fund (“the Fund”) from February 13, 2007 through May 30, 2012. Simple correlation tests, difference-in-means tests, and Granger causality tests generally fail to reject the null hypothesis that changes in Fund positions are unrelated to subsequent returns in all four energy futures markets. We also fail to find any evidence that Fund positions are related to price movements in the WTI crude oil futures market using Singleton's (2014) long-horizon regression specification. Our results suggest Singleton's original finding of significant impacts and high levels of predictability may be simply an artifact of the method used to impute crude oil positions of index investors in a particular sample period. Overall, the empirical tests in this study fail to find compelling evidence of predictive links between commodity index investment and changes in energy futures prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanders, Dwight R. & Irwin, Scott H., 2014. "Energy futures prices and commodity index investment: New evidence from firm-level position data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(S1), pages 57-68.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:46:y:2014:i:s1:p:s57-s68
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2014.09.005
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin T. Bohl & Nicole Branger & Mark Trede, 2022. "Measurement errors in index trader positions data: Is the price pressure hypothesis still invalid?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 1534-1553, September.
    2. Amaro, Raphael & Pinho, Carlos & Madaleno, Mara, 2022. "Forecasting the Value-at-Risk of energy commodities: A comparison of models and alternative distribution functions," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 65, pages 77-101.
    3. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin, 2017. "Bubbles, Froth and Facts: Another Look at the Masters Hypothesis in Commodity Futures Markets," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 345-365, June.
    4. Sharma, Shahil & Escobari, Diego, 2018. "Identifying price bubble periods in the energy sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 418-429.
    5. Valenti, Daniele & Manera, Matteo & Sbuelz, Alessandro, 2020. "Interpreting the oil risk premium: Do oil price shocks matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Figuerola-Ferretti, Isabel & McCrorie, J. Roderick & Paraskevopoulos, Ioannis, 2020. "Mild explosivity in recent crude oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Yan, Lei & Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R., 2018. "Mapping algorithms, agricultural futures, and the relationship between commodity investment flows and crude oil futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 486-504.
    8. Shahzad, Umer & Jena, Sangram Keshari & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Doğan, Buhari & Magazzino, Cosimo, 2022. "Time-frequency analysis between Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) and WTI crude oil prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders & Lei Yan, 2023. "The order flow cost of index rolling in commodity futures markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 1025-1050, June.
    10. Gronwald, Marc, 2016. "Explosive oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-5.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bubble; Commodity; Futures market; Index funds; Michael Masters; Energy prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

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