Are there exploitable trends in commodity futures prices?

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Banking & Finance
Year: 2016
Volume: 70
Issue: C
Pages: 214-234

Authors (3)

Han, Yufeng (not in RePEc) Hu, Ting (not in RePEc) Yang, Jian (University of Colorado Denver)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We provide evidence that a simple moving average timing strategy, when applied to portfolios of commodity futures, can generate superior performance to the buy-and-hold strategy. The outperformance is very robust. It can survive the transaction costs in the futures markets, it is not concentrated in a particular subperiod, and is robust to short-sale constraints, alternative specifications of the moving average lag length, alternative construction of the continuous time-series of futures prices, and impact from data mining. The outperformance of the timing strategy is not driven by the backwardation and contango. It is stronger during recession and can not be explained by macroeconomic variables. Finally, we confirm that the outperformance of the moving average timing strategy in the commodity futures comes from the successful market timing.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jbfina:v:70:y:2016:i:c:p:214-234
Journal Field
Finance
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29