IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/apecpp/v42y2020i4p583-610.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Returns to Investing in Commodity Futures: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Author

Listed:
  • Scott H. Irwin
  • Dwight R. Sanders
  • Aaron Smith
  • Scott Main

Abstract

Commodity futures investment grew rapidly after its popularity exploded in the mid‐2000s. However, real‐time performance has been disappointing. Our analysis shows that the disappointing commodity returns were not driven mechanically by contango or negative “roll yields.” We show that the expected return to individual commodity futures is near zero before expenses, which implies net losses (before interest earnings) will be equal to order execution and operating costs estimated at 3%–4% per year. Finally, it is likely that rapid increases in commodity prices during 2004–2008 skewed investor return expectations upward much like it did in the early 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders & Aaron Smith & Scott Main, 2020. "Returns to Investing in Commodity Futures: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 583-610, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:42:y:2020:i:4:p:583-610
    DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13049
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/aepp.13049?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williams,Jeffrey C. & Wright,Brian D., 2005. "Storage and Commodity Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023399, September.
    2. Philip Garcia & Scott H. Irwin & Aaron Smith, 2015. "Futures Market Failure?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 40-64.
    3. Telser, Lester G., 1967. "The Supply of Speculative Services in Wheat, Corn, and Soybeans," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 7(Supplemen), pages 1-46.
    4. Robert W. Kolb, 1992. "Is normal backwardation normal?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 75-91, February.
    5. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Carrion, Allen & Tuttle, Laura & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2016. "Liquidity, resiliency and market quality around predictable trades: Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 142-166.
    6. Geetesh Bhardwaj & Gary B. Gorton & K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 2014. "Editor's Choice Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: The Inefficient Performance and Persistence of Commodity Trading Advisors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(11), pages 3099-3132.
    7. Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Does the Stock Market Rationally Reflect Fundamental Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 591-601, July.
    8. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2015. "Commodity Futures Prices: Some Evidence on Forecast Power, Premiums, and the Theory of Storage," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 4, pages 79-102, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Nicole M. Moran & Scott H. Irwin & Philip Garcia, 2020. "Who Wins and Who Loses? Trader Returns and Risk Premiums in Agricultural Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 611-652, December.
    10. Suleyman Basak & Anna Pavlova, 2016. "A Model of Financialization of Commodities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1511-1556, August.
    11. Carter, Colin A & Rausser, Gordon C & Schmitz, Andrew, 1983. "Efficient Asset Portfolios and the Theory of Normal Backwardation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 319-331, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Main, Scott & Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R. & Smith, Aaron, 2018. "Financialization and the returns to commodity investments," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 22-28.
    14. Geetesh Bhardwaj & Gary B. Gorton & K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 2008. "Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: The Inefficient Performance and Persistence of Commodity Trading Advisors," NBER Working Papers 14424, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Rentzler, Joel C, 1987. "Professionally Managed, Publicly Traded Commodity Funds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 175-199, April.
    16. Bruce Bjornson & Colin A. Carter, 1997. "New Evidence on Agricultural Commodity Return Performance under Time-Varying Risk," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(3), pages 918-930.
    17. Acharya, Viral V. & Lochstoer, Lars A. & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2013. "Limits to arbitrage and hedging: Evidence from commodity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 441-465.
    18. Lester G. Telser, 1958. "Futures Trading and the Storage of Cotton and Wheat," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(3), pages 233-233.
    19. Moskowitz, Tobias J. & Ooi, Yao Hua & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2012. "Time series momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 228-250.
    20. Robert S. Pindyck, 2001. "The Dynamics of Commodity Spot and Futures Markets: A Primer," The Energy Journal, , vol. 22(3), pages 1-29, July.
    21. Paul H. Cootner, 1960. "Returns to Speculators: Telser versus Keynes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 396-396.
    22. 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.
    23. Edwards, F.R. & Ma, C., 1988. "Commodity Pool Performance:Is The Information Contained In Pool Prospectuses Useful?," Papers csfm-166, Columbia - Center for Futures Markets.
    24. William G. Tomek, 1997. "Commodity Futures Prices as Forecasts," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 23-44.
    25. Scott Willenbrock, 2011. "Diversification Return, Portfolio Rebalancing, and the Commodity Return Puzzle," Papers 1109.1256, arXiv.org.
    26. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Rentzler, Joel, 1989. "New Public Offerings, Information, and Investor Rationality: The Case of Publicly Offered Commodity Funds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 1-15, January.
    27. Franklin R. Edwards & Cindy Ma, 1988. "Commodity pool performance: Is the information contained in pool prospectuses useful?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(5), pages 589-616, October.
    28. 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.
    29. Black, Fischer, 1976. "The pricing of commodity contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 167-179.
    30. Geetesh Bhardwaj & Gary Gorton & Geert Rouwenhorst, 2015. "Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures Ten Years Later," NBER Working Papers 21243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Nicole M. Moran & Scott H. Irwin & Philip Garcia, 2020. "Who Wins and Who Loses? Trader Returns and Risk Premiums in Agricultural Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 611-652, December.
    2. Isengildina Massa, Olga & Stewart, Shamar & Hassman, Colburn H., 2021. "RETURN DIVERGENCE IN COMMODITY ETFs: NATURE AND CAUSES," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 313896, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    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. Nicole M. Moran & Scott H. Irwin & Philip Garcia, 2020. "Who Wins and Who Loses? Trader Returns and Risk Premiums in Agricultural Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 611-652, December.
    2. Main, Scott & Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R. & Smith, Aaron, 2018. "Financialization and the returns to commodity investments," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 22-28.
    3. Miffre, Joëlle, 2016. "Long-short commodity investing: A review of the literature," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-13.
    4. Boyd, Naomi E. & Harris, Jeffrey H. & Li, Bingxin, 2018. "An update on speculation and financialization in commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 91-104.
    5. Carter, Colin A., 1999. "Commodity futures markets: a survey," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 43(2), pages 1-39, June.
    6. Loïc Maréchal, 2023. "A tale of two premiums revisited," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 580-614, May.
    7. Jo, Yonghwan & Kim, Jihee & Santos, Francisco, 2022. "The impact of liquidity risk in the Chinese banking system on the global commodity markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 23-50.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Miffre, Joelle, 2021. "The risk premia of energy futures," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    11. Gary Gorton & Fumio Hayashi & K. Rouwenhorst, 2007. "The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2605, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Oct 2008.
    12. Symeonidis, Lazaros & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Brooks, Chris & Lazar, Emese, 2012. "Futures basis, inventory and commodity price volatility: An empirical analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2651-2663.
    13. Jesse Blocher & Ricky Cooper & Marat Molyboga, 2018. "Benchmarking commodity investments," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 340-358, March.
    14. Sung Je Byun, 2017. "Speculation in Commodity Futures Markets, Inventories and the Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    15. Quanbiao Shang & Teresa Serra & Philip Garcia, 2023. "Ride the trend: Is there spread momentum profit in the US commodity markets?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 24-47, February.
    16. Ziran Li & Dermot J. Hayes, 2022. "The hedging pressure hypothesis and the risk premium in the soybean reverse crush spread," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 428-445, March.
    17. Ivar Ekeland & Delphine Lautier & Bertrand Villeneuve, 2019. "Hedging pressure and speculation in commodity markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(1), pages 83-123, July.
    18. Ahmet E. Kocagil & Kudret Topyan, 1997. "An empirical note on demand for speculation and futures risk premium: A Kalman Filter application," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 77-93.
    19. Bannigidadmath, Deepa & Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2022. "Economic importance of correlations for energy and other commodities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    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

    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:wly:apecpp:v:42:y:2020:i:4:p:583-610. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2040-5804 .

    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.