This paper examines the weak form market efficiency using transactions data. Previous studies have mainly used daily data to investigate whether trading rules can result in abnormal profits with mixed results. This study on the other hand uses trade-by-trade data to apply trading rules such as moving average and filter. Two different futures contracts the Australian All Ordinaries Index traded ...

In recent years commodity markets have experienced a dramatic growth in trading volume, the variety of contracts and underlying commodities. Futures as well as forward are contracts for future delivery of an underlying asset. The asset can be a physical commodity (corn, oil, precious metals, and so on) or financial instruments (bonds, currencies, stocks indices, and so on). Commodities differ f...

Using market prices for crude-oil futures options and the prices of their underlying futures contracts, we estimate the volatility skew in two ways. As a benchmark for our theoretical model, on each date we first estimate a crosssectional polynomial structure for each maturity to demonstrate the strength and weaknesses of a purely-mechanical model. We then apply to the empirical data a Merton-s...

In this paper we study whether the commodity futures market predicts the commodity spot market. Using historical daily data on four commodities—oil, gold, platinum, and silver—we find that they do. We then show how investors can use this information on the futures market to devise trading strategies and make profits. In particular, dynamic trading strategies based on a mean–variance investor fr...

We develop a model for pricing expropriation risk in natural resource projects, in particular an oil field. The government is viewed as holding an American-style option to expropriate the oil field, but facing the following three possible expropriation costs: A state-run company may produce oil less cost-efficiently than a private firm, the government may have to pay a compensation to the firm,...

The present value model says that an asset's price equals the sum of current and future discounted expected future payoffs from ownership of the asset. I explore the limits of the present value model by testing its ability to explain the pricing of storable commodities. For commodities the payoff stream is the convenience yield that accrues from holding inventories, and it can be measured direc...

This paper investigates the valuation and hedging of spread options on two commodity prices which in the long run are cointegrated. For long term option pricing the spread between the two prices should therefore be modelled directly. This approach offers significant advantages relative to the traditional multi-factor spread option pricing model since the correlation between two asset returns is...

On the timing of non-renewable resource extraction with regime switching prices This paper develops a model of a profit maximizing firm with the option to exploit a nonrenewable resource, choosing the timing and pace of development. The resource price is modelled as a regime switching process, which is calibrated to oil futures prices. A HamiltonJacobi-Bellman equation is specified that describ...