The impact of embedded location options on price discovery of agricultural futures contracts – the evidence from the Chana contract

Purpose Embedded options can create asymmetries in information impounded by cash and futures markets, causing errors in price discovery estimation. This paper aims to investigate the impact of embedded location options on measures of price discovery. Design/methodology/approach Various price discovery metrics are computed using observed futures prices that contain embedded location options and cash prices for Chana. Prices of a futures contract that contains no options using observed futures prices and estimates of location option value are synthesized. The price discovery measures are recomputed using synthetic option-adjusted futures contract prices and cash prices, and changes in these measures are attributed to the impact of the embedded location option. Findings If the presence of the location option is ignored, futures appear to dominate price discovery. Once the location option is adjusted for, cash markets are found to dominate price discovery. Research limitations/implications The lack of complete time-series data from the exchange for multiple commodities allows only limited empirical evidence for generalizing conclusions. Practical implications This paper highlights that regulators, exchanges and policymakers in India need to revisit delivery specifications of agricultural commodity futures contracts to enhance their utility from a price discovery perspective. Originality/value This work shows that ignoring the presence of embedded options can cause significant errors in price discovery assessment of agricultural futures contracts, particularly in heterogenous cash markets.

Forecasting carbon futures price: a hybrid method incorporating fuzzy entropy and extreme learning machine

In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid model that extends prior work involving ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) by using fuzzy entropy and extreme learning machine (ELM) methods. We demonstrate this 3-stage model by applying it to forecast carbon futures prices which are characterized by chaos and complexity. First, we employ the EEMD method to decompose carbon futures prices into a couple of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and one residue. Second, the fuzzy entropy and K-means clustering methods are used to reconstruct the IMFs and the residue to obtain three reconstructed components, specifically a high frequency series, a low frequency series, and a trend series. Third, the ARMA model is implemented for the stationary high and low frequency series, while the extreme learning machine (ELM) model is utilized for the non-stationary trend series. Finally, all the component forecasts are aggregated to form final forecasts of the carbon price for each model. The empirical results show that the proposed reconstruction algorithm can bring more than 40% improvement in prediction accuracy compared to the traditional fine-to-coarse reconstruction algorithm under the same forecasting framework. The hybrid forecasting model proposed in this paper also well captures the direction of the price changes, with strong and robust forecasting ability, which is significantly better than the single forecasting models and the other hybrid forecasting models.

Prediction of Agricultural Commodities Futures Prices: A DQN-LSTM Method

This paper combines deep Q network (DQN) with long and short-term memory (LSTM) and proposes a novel hybrid deep learning method called DQN-LSTM framework. The proposed method aims to address the prediction of five Chinese agricultural commodities futures prices over different time duration. The DQN-LSTM applies the strategy enhancement of deep reinforcement learning to the structural parameter optimization of deep recurrent networks, and achieves the organic integration of two types of deep learning algorithms. The new framework has the capacity of self-optimization and learning of parameters, thus improving the performance of prediction by its own iteration, which shows great prospects for future application in financial prediction and other directions. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the effectiveness of the DQN-LSTM method with that of traditional predicting methods such as auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), support vector machine (SVR) and LSTM. The results show that the DQN-LSTM method can effectively optimize the traditional LSTM structural parameters through policy iteration of the deep reinforcement learning algorithm, which contributes to a better long and short-term prediction accuracy. In particular, the longer the prediction period, the more obvious the advantage of prediction accuracy of a DQN-LSTM method.

A machine learning-based price state prediction model for agricultural commodities using external factors

In recent times of noticeable climate change the consideration of external factors, such as weather and economic key figures, becomes even more crucial for a proper valuation of derivatives written on agricultural commodities. The occurrence of remarkable price changes as a result of severe changes in these factors motivates the introduction of different price states, each describing different dynamics of the price process. In order to include external factors we propose a two-step hybrid model based on machine learning methods for clustering and classification. First, we assign price states to historical prices using K-means clustering. These price states are also assigned to the corresponding data of external factors. Second, predictions of future price states are then obtained from short-term predictions of the external factors by means of either K-nearest neighbors or random forest classification. We apply our model to real corn futures data and generate price scenarios via a Monte Carlo simulation, which we compare to Sørensen (J Futures Mark 22(5):393–426, 2002). Thereby we obtain a better approximation of the real futures prices by the simulated futures prices regarding the error measures MAE, RMSE and MAPE. From a practical point of view, these simulations can be used to support the assessment of price risks in risk management systems or as decision support regarding trading strategies under different price states.

Relationship Between Spot Prices and Futures Prices: Evidence From Karachi Stock Exchange

This study investigates the relationship between futures prices and their underlying spot prices of the stocks trading on Pakistan stock market. Data on the monthly closing prices of future contracts and their underlying stocks of 30 companies for the period January 2004 to June 2014 have been taken for analysis. Descriptive statistics, Augmented Dicky Fuller test for unit root testing, Johnson Co-integration test, Granger causality test and Vector Error Correction Model are used. The results confirms significant long term relationship between futures prices and the associated Spot prices in case of 26 companies. The report of Granger causality test indicates that a Bi-directional causality lack to exist in case of each security, VECM shows that Spot prices for current month are effected by previous month prices in case of 7 companies, while futures prices of current month are affected by previous month prices in case of 4 companies. VECM illustrates that the volatility shocks in spot market are less effected by futures market, however the volatility shocks in corresponding futures market were strongly and significantly affected by spot market volatility.

Market efficiency and price risk management of agricultural commodity prices in India

Purpose Market efficiency leads to transparent and fair price discovery of commodity markets, thus enhancing the value chain for competitive benefit. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the market efficiency of Indian agricultural commodities at spot, futures and mandi markets apart from exploring price risk management in these markets. Design/methodology/approach This study uses Johansen co-integration, vector error correction model and granger causality for analyzing market efficiency of the nine most liquid agricultural commodities across three markets, namely, spot, futures and mandi. All these nine commodities are traded on National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange. Findings The statistical results indicate price discovery exists in the mandi market and spot market leading to futures prices. Mandi price returns are seen to negatively influence futures returns in the case of cotton seed, guar seed and spot returns in the case of jeera, coriander and chana. For castor seed, the three markets are seen to have no long run relationship. The results of Granger causality reveal short run relationship between all the three markets in the case of soybean seed and coriander. In these commodities, prices in all three markets are capable of predicting the prices in the other markets. For the case of cottonseed, Rape Mustard seed, jeera, guar seed, the results indicate unidirectional causality between the mandi markets and the other two markets. Research limitations/implications These results shall facilitate policymakers to explore intervention through integrated agri-platform (IAP) in price discovery and market efficiency. Practical implications The results of this study are useful in understanding the price discovery of mandi markets and its role in the spot and futures market. Agricultural commodities price discovery depends upon the integration of all these three markets. Introduction of IAP as described in the paper shall facilitate price risk management apart from improving the efficiency of price discovery. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study considering mandi, spot and futures prices in the price discovery process in India. In addition, this study found the role of mandi markets in serving the economic function of price discovery and price risk management. Hence, suggests for policy intervention for Indian agricultural commodities to manage price risk.

Determinants of Commodity Futures Prices: Decomposition Approach

Developing models to analyze time series is a very sophisticated, time-consuming, but interesting experience for researchers. Commodity price component determination is challenging due to remarkable price volatility, uncertainty, and complexity in the futures market. This study aims to determine the components that drive the market price of commodity futures. This study utilized the decomposition methods, empirical mode decomposition (EMD), and variational mode decomposition (VMD), to analyze three commodity futures prices data: corn from agricultural products, crude oil from energy, and gold from industrial metal. We applied these techniques to decompose the daily data of each commodity price from different periods and frequencies into individual intrinsic mode functions for EMD and modes for VMD. We used the hierarchical clustering method and Euclidean distance approach to classify the IMFs and modes into high-frequency, low-frequency, and trend. Next, applying statistical measures, particularly, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, Kendall rank correlation, and Spearman rank correlation coefficient, we observed that the trend and low-frequency parts of the market price are the main drivers of commodity futures markets’ price fluctuations. The low-frequencies are caused by special events. In a nutshell, commodity futures prices are affected by economic development rather than short-lived market variations caused by ordinary disequilibrium of supply-demand.

Forecasting the volatility of EUA futures with economic policy uncertainty using the GARCH-MIDAS model

This study investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the volatility of European Union (EU) carbon futures prices and whether it has predictive power for the volatility of carbon futures prices. The GARCH-MIDAS model is applied for evaluating the impact of different EPU indexes on the price volatility of European Union Allowance (EUA) futures. We then compare the predictive power for the volatility of the two GARCH-MIDAS models based on different EPU indexes and six GARCH-type models. Our empirical results show that the GARCH-MIDAS models, which exhibit superior out-of-sample predictive ability, outperform GARCH-type models. The results also indicate that EPU has noticeable effect on the volatility of EUA futures. Specifically, the forecast accuracy of the EU EPU index is significantly higher than that of the global EPU index. Robustness checks further confirm that the EPU index (especially the EPU index of the EU) has strong predictive power for EUA futures prices. Additionally, using the volatility forecasting methods that GARCH-MIDAS models combine with the EPU index, investors can construct their portfolios to realize economic returns.