What Every Investor Should Know About Commodities, Part Ii: Multivariate Return Analysis
Alternative Investment Research Centre Working Paper No. 33
35 Pages Posted: 14 Jun 2006 Last revised: 20 Oct 2016
There are 2 versions of this paper
What Every Investor Should Know About Commodities, Part Ii: Multivariate Return Analysis
What Every Investor Should Know About Commodities Part II: Multivariate Return Analysis
Date Written: June 1, 2006
Abstract
In this paper we study the multivariate return properties of a large variety of commodity futures. We find that between commodity groupings (such as metals, energy, etc.) correlations are very low and mostly insignificant whereas within groups they tend to be much stronger. In addition, commodity futures are roughly uncorrelated with stocks and bonds. Still, correlations may vary somewhat over the different phases of the business cycle, suggesting that not all commodities make equally good diversifiers at all times. Copula-based tests do not indicate any deviant behaviour in the tails of the joint return distribution of commodity futures and stocks or bonds. Contrary to equities and bonds, we show that commodity futures returns are positively correlated with unexpected inflation (i.e. 25% on average with CPI inflation as opposed to -30% for equities and -50% for bonds). There are significant differences between the various commodities, however, with energy, metals, cattle, and sugar offering the best hedging potential. Altogether, assuming that the observed regularities will persist, our results confirm that a well-balanced commodity futures portfolio could offer a worthwhile diversification service to the typical traditional investment portfolio.
Keywords: Commodities, commodity futures, correlation, tail-dependence, SJC copula, inflation
JEL Classification: G11, E44, O13, Q19, Q49
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
The Tactical and Strategic Value of Commodity Futures
By Claude B. Erb and Campbell R. Harvey
-
The Tactical and Strategic Value of Commodity Futures
By Claude B. Erb and Campbell R. Harvey
-
The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability
-
The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns
By Gary B. Gorton, Fumio Hayashi, ...
-
The Fundamentals of Commodity Futures Returns
By Gary B. Gorton, Fumio Hayashi, ...
-
Momentum Strategies in Commodity Futures Markets
By Joëlle Miffre and Georgios Rallis