IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jforec/v40y2021i7p1310-1324.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The information content of uncertainty indices for natural gas futures volatility forecasting

Author

Listed:
  • Chao Liang
  • Feng Ma
  • Lu Wang
  • Qing Zeng

Abstract

We investigate the information content of five uncertainty indices for the US natural gas futures volatility forecasting. Our investigation is based on the GARCH‐MIDAS framework. The in‐sample outcomes suggest that most of uncertainty indices have a crucial effect on natural gas futures volatility. And the out‐of‐sample prediction results indicate that the geopolitical risk (GPR) and equity market volatility (EMV) indices contain more useful information for natural gas futures volatility. Moreover, according to the empirical results of special periods, we observe that the EMV index exhibits superior predictive ability under the periods of postcrisis, expansions, and low volatility. Our results are confirmed by several robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Chao Liang & Feng Ma & Lu Wang & Qing Zeng, 2021. "The information content of uncertainty indices for natural gas futures volatility forecasting," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(7), pages 1310-1324, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jforec:v:40:y:2021:i:7:p:1310-1324
    DOI: 10.1002/for.2769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/for.2769
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/for.2769?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. Lovcha, Yuliya & Perez-Laborda, Alejandro, 2020. "Dynamic frequency connectedness between oil and natural gas volatilities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 181-189.
    2. Libing Fang & Baizhu Chen & Honghai Yu & Yichuo Qian, 2018. "The importance of global economic policy uncertainty in predicting gold futures market volatility: A GARCH‐MIDAS approach," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 413-422, March.
    3. Husted, Lucas & Rogers, John & Sun, Bo, 2020. "Monetary policy uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 20-36.
    4. Mei, Dexiang & Zeng, Qing & Cao, Xiang & Diao, Xiaohua, 2019. "Uncertainty and oil volatility: New evidence," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 525(C), pages 155-163.
    5. Tian, Fengping & Yang, Ke & Chen, Langnan, 2017. "Realized volatility forecasting of agricultural commodity futures using the HAR model with time-varying sparsity," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 132-152.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello, 2022. "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1194-1225, April.
    9. Peter R. Hansen & Asger Lunde & James M. Nason, 2011. "The Model Confidence Set," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 453-497, March.
    10. Ke Yang & Langnan Chen & Fengping Tian, 2015. "Realized Volatility Forecast of Stock Index Under Structural Breaks," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 57-82, January.
    11. Choudhry, Taufiq & Papadimitriou, Fotios I. & Shabi, Sarosh, 2016. "Stock market volatility and business cycle: Evidence from linear and nonlinear causality tests," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 89-101.
    12. Yi, Yongsheng & Ma, Feng & Zhang, Yaojie & Huang, Dengshi, 2018. "Forecasting the prices of crude oil using the predictor, economic and combined constraints," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 237-245.
    13. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    14. 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.
    15. Yan‐ran Ma & Qiang Ji & Jiaofeng Pan, 2019. "Oil financialization and volatility forecast: Evidence from multidimensional predictors," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(6), pages 564-581, September.
    16. Robert F. Engle & Eric Ghysels & Bumjean Sohn, 2013. "Stock Market Volatility and Macroeconomic Fundamentals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 776-797, July.
    17. Yaojie Zhang & Feng Ma & Tianyi Wang & Li Liu, 2019. "Out‐of‐sample volatility prediction: A new mixed‐frequency approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 669-680, November.
    18. Liang, Chao & Ma, Feng & Li, Ziyang & Li, Yan, 2020. "Which types of commodity price information are more useful for predicting US stock market volatility?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 642-650.
    19. Xu Gong & Boqiang Lin, 2018. "Structural breaks and volatility forecasting in the copper futures market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 290-339, March.
    20. Lin, Boqiang & Wesseh, Presley K., 2013. "What causes price volatility and regime shifts in the natural gas market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 553-563.
    21. Fenghua Wen & Yupei Zhao & Minzhi Zhang & Chunyan Hu, 2019. "Forecasting realized volatility of crude oil futures with equity market uncertainty," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(59), pages 6411-6427, December.
    22. Aloui, Riadh & Gupta, Rangan & Miller, Stephen M., 2016. "Uncertainty and crude oil returns," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 92-100.
    23. David E. Rapach & Jack K. Strauss & Guofu Zhou, 2010. "Out-of-Sample Equity Premium Prediction: Combination Forecasts and Links to the Real Economy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 821-862, February.
    24. repec:eee:finlet:v:24:y:2018:i:c:p:56-63 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Mu, Xiaoyi, 2007. "Weather, storage, and natural gas price dynamics: Fundamentals and volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 46-63, January.
    26. 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.
    27. Zhang, Yaojie & Wei, Yu & Zhang, Yi & Jin, Daxiang, 2019. "Forecasting oil price volatility: Forecast combination versus shrinkage method," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 423-433.
    28. Robert F. Engle & Jose Gonzalo Rangel, 2008. "The Spline-GARCH Model for Low-Frequency Volatility and Its Global Macroeconomic Causes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1187-1222, May.
    29. Geng, Jiang-Bo & Xu, Xiao-Yue & Ji, Qiang, 2020. "The time-frequency impacts of natural gas prices on US economic activity," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    30. Yang, Ke & Tian, Fengping & Chen, Langnan & Li, Steven, 2017. "Realized volatility forecast of agricultural futures using the HAR models with bagging and combination approaches," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 276-291.
    31. 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.
    32. Herbert, John H, 1995. "Trading volume, maturity and natural gas futures price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 293-299, October.
    33. Hiroaki Suenaga & Aaron Smith & Jeffrey Williams, 2008. "Volatility dynamics of NYMEX natural gas futures prices," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 438-463, May.
    34. Francesco Audrino & Yujia Hu, 2016. "Volatility Forecasting: Downside Risk, Jumps and Leverage Effect," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, February.
    35. Mei, Dexiang & Ma, Feng & Liao, Yin & Wang, Lu, 2020. "Geopolitical risk uncertainty and oil future volatility: Evidence from MIDAS models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    36. 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.
    37. 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.
    38. Ghysels, Eric & Santa-Clara, Pedro & Valkanov, Rossen, 2006. "Predicting volatility: getting the most out of return data sampled at different frequencies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 59-95.
    39. 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.
    40. Wang, Yudong & Ma, Feng & Wei, Yu & Wu, Chongfeng, 2016. "Forecasting realized volatility in a changing world: A dynamic model averaging approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 136-149.
    41. Zhang, Yaojie & Ma, Feng & Shi, Benshan & Huang, Dengshi, 2018. "Forecasting the prices of crude oil: An iterated combination approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 472-483.
    42. Douglas G. Santos & Flavio A. Ziegelmann, 2014. "Volatility Forecasting via MIDAS, HAR and their Combination: An Empirical Comparative Study for IBOVESPA," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 284-299, July.
    43. Prokopczuk, Marcel & Stancu, Andrei & Symeonidis, Lazaros, 2019. "The economic drivers of commodity market volatility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-1.
    44. Chao Liang & Yu Wei & Yaojie Zhang, 2020. "Is implied volatility more informative for forecasting realized volatility: An international perspective," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(8), pages 1253-1276, December.
    45. Mark W. Watson & James H. Stock, 2004. "Combination forecasts of output growth in a seven-country data set," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 405-430.
    46. Hailemariam, Abebe & Smyth, Russell, 2019. "What drives volatility in natural gas prices?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 731-742.
    47. Ergen, Ibrahim & Rizvanoghlu, Islam, 2016. "Asymmetric impacts of fundamentals on the natural gas futures volatility: An augmented GARCH approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 64-74.
    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. Chao Liang & Yaojie Zhang & Xiafei Li & Feng Ma, 2022. "Which predictor is more predictive for Bitcoin volatility? And why?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 1947-1961, April.
    2. Chen, Zhonglu & Liang, Chao & Umar, Muhammad, 2021. "Is investor sentiment stronger than VIX and uncertainty indices in predicting energy volatility?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Li, Xiafei & Liang, Chao & Chen, Zhonglu & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Forecasting crude oil volatility with uncertainty indicators: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. 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).
    6. 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).
    7. Shi, Chunpei & Wei, Yu & Li, Xiafei & Liu, Yuntong, 2023. "Combination forecasts of China's oil futures returns based on multiple uncertainties and their connectedness with oil," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    8. Mei, Dexiang & Zhao, Chenchen & Luo, Qin & Li, Yan, 2022. "Forecasting the Chinese low-carbon index volatility," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Ma, Feng & Wahab, M.I.M. & Zhang, Yaojie, 2019. "Forecasting the U.S. stock volatility: An aligned jump index from G7 stock markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 132-146.
    11. 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.
    12. Yan, Xiang & Bai, Jiancheng & Li, Xiafei & Chen, Zhonglu, 2022. "Can dimensional reduction technology make better use of the information of uncertainty indices when predicting volatility of Chinese crude oil futures?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Liu, Guangqiang & Guo, Xiaozhu, 2022. "Forecasting stock market volatility using commodity futures volatility information," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    14. Chao Liang & Yu Wei & Likun Lei & Feng Ma, 2022. "Global equity market volatility forecasting: New evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 594-609, January.
    15. Li, Xiafei & Guo, Qiang & Liang, Chao & Umar, Muhammad, 2023. "Forecasting gold volatility with geopolitical risk indices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Wen, Danyan & He, Mengxi & Wang, Yudong & Zhang, Yaojie, 2024. "Forecasting crude oil market volatility: A comprehensive look at uncertainty variables," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 1022-1041.
    17. Liang, Chao & Luo, Qin & Li, Yan & Huynh, Luu Duc Toan, 2023. "Global financial stress index and long-term volatility forecast for international stock markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Chao Liang & Yan Li & Feng Ma & Yaojie Zhang, 2022. "Forecasting international equity market volatility: A new approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(7), pages 1433-1457, November.
    19. Liu, Jing & Ma, Feng & Tang, Yingkai & Zhang, Yaojie, 2019. "Geopolitical risk and oil volatility: A new insight," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Yu Wei & Lan Bai & Kun Yang & Guiwu Wei, 2021. "Are industry‐level indicators more helpful to forecast industrial stock volatility? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers index," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 17-39, January.

    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:jforec:v:40:y:2021:i:7:p:1310-1324. 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: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/2966 .

    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.