IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v80y2019icp707-719.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financialization, fundamentals, and the time-varying determinants of US natural gas prices

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, TianTian
  • Zhang, Dayong
  • Clive Broadstock, David

Abstract

Increasing empirical evidence shows that natural gas prices have decoupled from oil prices. Yet there remains an open question as to what are the determining factors of natural gas prices following the demise of oil-indexation. This paper aims to address this question using a dynamic model averaging (DMA) approach. DMA can help identify key/important price determinants, and importantly, does so within a time varying framework allowing us to document how the set of determinants has evolved in response to key market changes. Using time series data between 2001 and 2018, we demonstrate a clear declining role of oil prices in the natural gas pricing mechanism, verifying the demise of indexation. Market or fundamental factors, such as weather, demand and supply conditions, have at the same time become more important. In addition, our results illustrate an increasing role from financial markets, captured by speculation related variables, providing empirical evidence to support the recent literature on commodity market financialization. The rising impact of speculation to natural gas prices introduces questions over how to balance market efficiency and risk management in the post-indexation regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, TianTian & Zhang, Dayong & Clive Broadstock, David, 2019. "Financialization, fundamentals, and the time-varying determinants of US natural gas prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 707-719.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:80:y:2019:i:c:p:707-719
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2019.01.026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988319300416
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2019.01.026?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. Alcaraz, Carlo & Villalvazo, Sergio, 2017. "The effect of natural gas shortages on the Mexican economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 147-153.
    2. Stephen P. A. Brown & Mine K. Yucel, 2008. "What Drives Natural Gas Prices?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 45-60.
    3. Ing-Haw Cheng & Wei Xiong, 2014. "Financialization of Commodity Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 419-441, December.
    4. Peter R. Hartley & Kenneth B Medlock III & Jennifer E. Rosthal, 2008. "The Relationship of Natural Gas to Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 47-66.
    5. Gary Koop & Dimitris Korobilis, 2012. "Forecasting Inflation Using Dynamic Model Averaging," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(3), pages 867-886, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Aye, Goodness & Gupta, Rangan & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Kim, Won Joong, 2015. "Forecasting the price of gold using dynamic model averaging," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 257-266.
    8. Batten, Jonathan A. & Ciner, Cetin & Lucey, Brian M., 2017. "The dynamic linkages between crude oil and natural gas markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 155-170.
    9. Koop, Gary & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2011. "UK macroeconomic forecasting with many predictors: Which models forecast best and when do they do so?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 2307-2318, September.
    10. Peter R. Hartley & Kenneth B. Medlock III, 2014. "The Relationship between Crude Oil and Natural Gas Prices: The Role of the Exchange Rate," The Energy Journal, , vol. 35(2), pages 25-44, April.
    11. Shi, Xunpeng & Padinjare Variam, Hari Malamakkavu, 2016. "Gas and LNG trading hubs, hub indexation and destination flexibility in East Asia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 587-596.
    12. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Hai-Ying & Geng, Jiang-Bo, 2018. "What drives natural gas prices in the United States? – A directed acyclic graph approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 79-88.
    13. Bork, Lasse & Møller, Stig V., 2015. "Forecasting house prices in the 50 states using Dynamic Model Averaging and Dynamic Model Selection," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 63-78.
    14. Zhang, Dayong & Wang, Tiantian & Shi, Xunpeng & Liu, Jia, 2018. "Is hub-based pricing a better choice than oil indexation for natural gas? Evidence from a multiple bubble test," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 495-503.
    15. Drachal, Krzysztof, 2016. "Forecasting spot oil price in a dynamic model averaging framework — Have the determinants changed over time?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 35-46.
    16. 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.
    17. David J. Ramberg and John E. Parsons, 2012. "The Weak Tie Between Natural Gas and Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    18. Silvennoinen, Annastiina & Thorp, Susan, 2013. "Financialization, crisis and commodity correlation dynamics," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 42-65.
    19. Nick, Sebastian & Thoenes, Stefan, 2014. "What drives natural gas prices? — A structural VAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 517-527.
    20. Anna Creti & Duc Khuong Nguyen, 2015. "Energy markets׳ financialization, risk spillovers, and pricing models," Post-Print hal-01517413, HAL.
    21. Brigida, Matthew, 2014. "The switching relationship between natural gas and crude oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 48-55.
    22. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14774 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Gatfaoui, Hayette, 2016. "Linking the gas and oil markets with the stock market: Investigating the U.S. relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 5-16.
    24. Filis, George & Degiannakis, Stavros & Floros, Christos, 2011. "Dynamic correlation between stock market and oil prices: The case of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 152-164, June.
    25. Hossein Hassani & Emmanuel Sirimal Silva & Rangan Gupta & Mawuli K. Segnon, 2015. "Forecasting the price of gold," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(39), pages 4141-4152, August.
    26. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Chevallier, Julien & Guesmi, Khaled, 2017. "“De-financialization” of commodities? Evidence from stock, crude oil and natural gas markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 228-239.
    27. Ji, Qiang & Geng, Jiang-Bo & Fan, Ying, 2014. "Separated influence of crude oil prices on regional natural gas import prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 96-105.
    28. Wakamatsu, Hiroki & Aruga, Kentaka, 2013. "The impact of the shale gas revolution on the U.S. and Japanese natural gas markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1002-1009.
    29. Broadstock, David C. & Cao, Hong & Zhang, Dayong, 2012. "Oil shocks and their impact on energy related stocks in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1888-1895.
    30. Naser, Hanan, 2016. "Estimating and forecasting the real prices of crude oil: A data rich model using a dynamic model averaging (DMA) approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 75-87.
    31. Geng, Jiang-Bo & Ji, Qiang & Fan, Ying, 2016. "The impact of the North American shale gas revolution on regional natural gas markets: Evidence from the regime-switching model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 167-178.
    32. Zhang, Dayong, 2017. "Oil shocks and stock markets revisited: Measuring connectedness from a global perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 323-333.
    33. Stern, Jonathan, 2014. "International gas pricing in Europe and Asia: A crisis of fundamentals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 43-48.
    34. Gong, Xu & Lin, Boqiang, 2017. "Forecasting the good and bad uncertainties of crude oil prices using a HAR framework," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 315-327.
    35. Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang, 2018. "Further evidence on the debate of oil-gas price decoupling: A long memory approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 68-75.
    36. Zhang, Dayong & Shi, Min & Shi, Xunpeng, 2018. "Oil indexation, market fundamentals, and natural gas prices: An investigation of the Asian premium in natural gas trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 33-41.
    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. Wang, Tiantian & Qu, Wan & Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang & Wu, Fei, 2022. "Time-varying determinants of China's liquefied natural gas import price: A dynamic model averaging approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    2. Zhang, Dayong & Wang, Tiantian & Shi, Xunpeng & Liu, Jia, 2018. "Is hub-based pricing a better choice than oil indexation for natural gas? Evidence from a multiple bubble test," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 495-503.
    3. Zhang, Dayong & Shi, Min & Shi, Xunpeng, 2018. "Oil indexation, market fundamentals, and natural gas prices: An investigation of the Asian premium in natural gas trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 33-41.
    4. Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang, 2018. "Further evidence on the debate of oil-gas price decoupling: A long memory approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 68-75.
    5. Halser, Christoph & Paraschiv, Florentina & Russo, Marianna, 2023. "Oil–gas price relationships on three continents: Disruptions and equilibria," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    6. Ji, Qiang & Geng, Jiang-Bo & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar, 2018. "Information spillovers and connectedness networks in the oil and gas markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 71-84.
    7. Theodosios Perifanis & Athanasios Dagoumas, 2020. "Price and Volatility Spillovers between Crude Oil and Natural Gas markets in Europe and Japan-Korea," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(5), pages 432-446.
    8. Yanting Chen & Peter R. Hartley & Yihui Lan, 2023. "Temperature, storage, and natural gas futures prices," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 549-575, April.
    9. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Hai-Ying & Geng, Jiang-Bo, 2018. "What drives natural gas prices in the United States? – A directed acyclic graph approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 79-88.
    10. Drachal, Krzysztof, 2018. "Comparison between Bayesian and information-theoretic model averaging: Fossil fuels prices example," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 208-251.
    11. Abid, Ilyes & Guesmi, Khaled & Goutte, Stéphane & Urom, Christian & Chevallier, Julien, 2019. "Commodities risk premia and regional integration in gas-exporting countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 267-276.
    12. Akcora, Begum & Kandemir Kocaaslan, Ozge, 2023. "Price bubbles in the European natural gas market between 2011 and 2020," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Shen, Yiran & Sun, Xiaolei & Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong, 2023. "Climate events matter in the global natural gas market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    14. Hailemariam, Abebe & Smyth, Russell, 2019. "What drives volatility in natural gas prices?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 731-742.
    15. Miao, Xiaoyu & Wang, Qunwei & Dai, Xingyu, 2022. "Is oil-gas price decoupling happening in China? A multi-scale quantile-on-quantile approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 450-470.
    16. Geng, Jiang-Bo & Ji, Qiang & Fan, Ying, 2017. "The relationship between regional natural gas markets and crude oil markets from a multi-scale nonlinear Granger causality perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 98-110.
    17. Wang, Zuyi & Kim, Man-Keun, 2022. "Price bubbles in oil & gas markets and their transfer," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Jan Prüser, 2019. "Adaptive learning from model space," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 29-38, January.
    19. Gao, Shen & Hou, Chenghan & Nguyen, Bao H., 2021. "Forecasting natural gas prices using highly flexible time-varying parameter models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    20. Zied Ftiti & Kais Tissaoui & Sahbi Boubaker, 2022. "On the relationship between oil and gas markets: a new forecasting framework based on a machine learning approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 915-943, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dynamic model averaging; Financialization; Natural gas prices; Oil indexation; Time-varying;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    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:80:y:2019:i:c:p:707-719. 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.