IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v154y2023ics0378426623001632.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploiting the dynamics of commodity futures curves

Author

Listed:
  • Bianchi, Robert J.
  • Fan, John Hua
  • Miffre, Joëlle
  • Zhang, Tingxi

Abstract

The Nelson-Siegel framework is employed to model the term structure of commodity futures prices. Exploiting the information embedded in the level, slope and curvature parameters, we develop novel investment strategies that assume short-term continuation of recent parallel, slope or butterfly movements of futures curves. Systematic strategies based on the change in the slope generate significant profits that are unrelated to previously documented risk factors and can survive reasonable transaction costs. Further analysis demonstrates that the profitability of the slope strategy increases with investor sentiment and is in part a compensation for the drawdowns incurred during economic slowdowns. The profitability can also be magnified through timing and persists under alternative specifications of the Nelson-Siegel model.

Suggested Citation

  • Bianchi, Robert J. & Fan, John Hua & Miffre, Joëlle & Zhang, Tingxi, 2023. "Exploiting the dynamics of commodity futures curves," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0378426623001632
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.106965
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426623001632
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.106965?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. Heidorn, Thomas & Mokinski, Frieder & Rühl, Christoph & Schmaltz, Christian, 2015. "The impact of fundamental and financial traders on the term structure of oil," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 276-287.
    2. Gao, Lei & Han, Yufeng & Zhengzi Li, Sophia & Zhou, Guofu, 2018. "Market intraday momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 394-414.
    3. Diebold, Francis X. & Li, Canlin, 2006. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 337-364, February.
    4. Barroso, Pedro & Detzel, Andrew, 2021. "Do limits to arbitrage explain the benefits of volatility-managed portfolios?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 744-767.
    5. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    6. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Frijns, Bart & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Miffre, Joelle, 2018. "The skewness of commodity futures returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 143-158.
    7. Geert Bekaert & Eric C. Engstrom & Nancy R. Xu, 2022. "The Time Variation in Risk Appetite and Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 3975-4004, June.
    8. Davidson Heath, 2019. "Macroeconomic Factors in Oil Futures Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4407-4421, September.
    9. Yang, Fan, 2013. "Investment shocks and the commodity basis spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 164-184.
    10. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    11. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    12. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    13. Gurdip Bakshi & Xiaohui Gao & Alberto G. Rossi, 2019. "Understanding the Sources of Risk Underlying the Cross Section of Commodity Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 619-641, February.
    14. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    15. Szakmary, Andrew C. & Shen, Qian & Sharma, Subhash C., 2010. "Trend-following trading strategies in commodity futures: A re-examination," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 409-426, February.
    16. Wenjin Kang & K. Geert Rouwenhorst & Ke Tang, 2020. "A Tale of Two Premiums: The Role of Hedgers and Speculators in Commodity Futures Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(1), pages 377-417, February.
    17. Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1997. "The Stochastic Behavior of Commodity Prices: Implications for Valuation and Hedging," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 923-973, July.
    18. Basu, Devraj & Miffre, Joëlle, 2013. "Capturing the risk premium of commodity futures: The role of hedging pressure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2652-2664.
    19. Gibson, Rajna & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1990. "Stochastic Convenience Yield and the Pricing of Oil Contingent Claims," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 959-976, July.
    20. Dominik M. Rösch & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam & Mathijs A. van Dijk, 2017. "The Dynamics of Market Efficiency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 1151-1187.
    21. C. L. Dunis & Jason Laws & Ben Evans, 2006. "Trading futures spreads: an application of correlation and threshold filters," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(12), pages 903-914.
    22. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    23. Jaime Casassus & Pierre Collin‐Dufresne, 2005. "Stochastic Convenience Yield Implied from Commodity Futures and Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2283-2331, October.
    24. Zaremba, Adam & Umutlu, Mehmet & Maydybura, Alina, 2020. "Where have the profits gone? Market efficiency and the disappearing equity anomalies in country and industry returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    25. Gary B. Gorton & Fumio Hayashi & K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 2013. "The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 35-105.
    26. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    27. Niels S. GrØnborg & Asger Lunde, 2016. "Analyzing Oil Futures with a Dynamic Nelson‐Siegel Model," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 153-173, February.
    28. Clifford S. Asness & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2013. "Value and Momentum Everywhere," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 929-985, June.
    29. Peter R. Locke & P. C. Venkatesh, 1997. "Futures market transaction costs," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(2), pages 229-245, April.
    30. Leo Melamed, 1981. "The futures market: Liquidity and the technique of spreading," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(3), pages 405-411, September.
    31. Marta Szymanowska & Frans Roon & Theo Nijman & Rob Goorbergh, 2014. "An Anatomy of Commodity Futures Risk Premia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(1), pages 453-482, February.
    32. Nelson, Charles R & Siegel, Andrew F, 1987. "Parsimonious Modeling of Yield Curves," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 473-489, October.
    33. Birru, Justin, 2018. "Day of the week and the cross-section of returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 182-214.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Hua Fan & Tingxi Zhang, 2024. "Commodity premia and risk management," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(7), pages 1097-1116, July.

    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. Prokopczuk, Marcel & Symeonidis, Lazaros & Wese Simen, Chardin & Wichmann, Robert, 2023. "Convenience yield risk," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Zaremba, Adam & Mikutowski, Mateusz & Szczygielski, Jan Jakub & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas, 2021. "The alpha momentum effect in commodity markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. John Hua Fan & Sebastian Binnewies & Sanuri De Silva, 2023. "Wisdom of crowds and commodity pricing," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 1040-1068, August.
    4. Yasuhiro Iwanaga & Ryuta Sakemoto, 2023. "Commodity momentum decomposition," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 198-216, February.
    5. Jun Yuan & Qi Xu & Ying Wang, 2023. "Probability weighting in commodity futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 516-548, April.
    6. Zaremba, Adam & Mikutowski, Mateusz & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas & Osman, Mohamed, 2019. "Picking winners to pick your winners: The momentum effect in commodity risk factors," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    7. Loïc Maréchal, 2023. "A tale of two premiums revisited," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 580-614, May.
    8. Sakkas, Athanasios & Tessaromatis, Nikolaos, 2020. "Factor based commodity investing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    9. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    10. Bianchi, Robert J. & Drew, Michael E. & Fan, John Hua, 2016. "Commodities momentum: A behavioral perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 133-150.
    11. Rad, Hossein & Low, Rand Kwong Yew & Miffre, Joëlle & Faff, Robert, 2020. "Does sophistication of the weighting scheme enhance the performance of long-short commodity portfolios?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 164-180.
    12. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Miffre, Joelle, 2021. "The risk premia of energy futures," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. Bannigidadmath, Deepa & Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2021. "Economic news and the cross-section of commodity futures returns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    14. Shang, Hua & Yuan, Ping & Huang, Lin, 2016. "Macroeconomic factors and the cross-section of commodity futures returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 316-332.
    15. Yufeng Han & Lingfei Kong, 2022. "A trend factor in commodity futures markets: Any economic gains from using information over investment horizons?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 803-822, May.
    16. John Hua Fan & Tingxi Zhang, 2024. "Commodity premia and risk management," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(7), pages 1097-1116, July.
    17. Li, Hemei & Liu, Zhenya & Zhao, Yuqian, 2023. "The Fortune and crash of common risk factors in Chinese commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    18. Gao, Xin & Li, Bingxin & Liu, Rui, 2023. "The relative pricing of WTI and Brent crude oil futures: Expectations or risk premia?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    19. Gurdip Bakshi & Xiaohui Gao & Alberto G. Rossi, 2019. "Understanding the Sources of Risk Underlying the Cross Section of Commodity Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 619-641, February.
    20. Jilong Chen & Christian Ewald & Ruolan Ouyang & Sjur Westgaard & Xiaoxia Xiao, 2022. "Pricing commodity futures and determining risk premia in a three factor model with stochastic volatility: the case of Brent crude oil," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(1), pages 29-46, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commodity futures; Nelson-Siegel model; Slope strategy; Spread;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    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:jbfina:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0378426623001632. 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/jbf .

    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.