Price distortions in the commodity futures markets

Speculation is not monolithic; it comes in many forms. A certain level of speculation is required for commodity futures markets to function. On the other hand, certain types of trading activities by speculators may damage a market's price discovery function and in turn its hedging function. However, there is great disagreement as to which types of speculation can distort commodity futures prices and the mechanisms for how a price distortion may occur. This thesis advances three distinct categories of speculative activities alleged to distort commodity prices and reviews evidence for each. Those three categories are: corner and squeeze manipulations, nonfundamental futures demand, and large speculative demand. Case studies are presented for each of the three categories. In addition, the effectiveness of speculative position limits in decreasing the occurrence of each category is analyzed. A question that arises, but is left unanswered, is whether the marginal benefits outweigh the possible costs of speculation once speculation rises above certain levels required for price discovery and hedging.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Helfrich, Devin B

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John E. Parsons.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78485

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/78485