Skip to main content
Log in

Examining Volatility Persistence and News Asymmetry in Soybeans Futures Returns

  • Published:
Atlantic Economic Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Four alternative generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), and three asymmetric GARCH models (EGARCH, TGARCH and APARCH) are used to examine the presence of volatility persistence and news asymmetry in soybeans futures data. Presence of fat tails in the data series resulted in applying Student’s-t and generalized error distributions in addition to Gaussian normal distribution. The results reveal that soybean return series exhibit volatility characteristics typical of a financial time series. The findings of this study indicate that the leverage effect was absent for soybeans suggesting that positive news causes more volatility to the commodity than negative news. Results further suggest that the fit of the GARCH models is improved by applying t-distribution errors. The diagnostic tests reveal that GARCH models are correctly specified and among all the competing models, APARCH (1,3) model with t-distribution performed best in capturing the volatility.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alexander, C. (2001). Market models: A guide to financial data analysis. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Apergis, N., & Rezitis, A. (2003). Agricultural price volatility spillover effects: the case of Greece. European Review of Agricultural Economics, 30(3), 389–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asteriou, D., & Hall, S. (2011). Applied econometrics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bekaert, G., & Wu, G. (2000). Asymmetric volatility and risk in equity markets. Review of Financial Studies, 13(1), 1–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollerslev, T. (1986). Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. Journal of Econometrics, 31(3), 307–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollerslev, T. (1987). A conditional heteroscedastic time series model for speculative prices rates of return. Review of Economics and Statistics, 69(3), 542–547.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollerslev, T., & Wooldridge, J. M. (1992). Quasi-maximum likelihood estimation and inference in dynamic models with time varying covariances. Econometric Review, 11(2), 143–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollerslev, T., Chou, R. Y., & Kroner, K. F. (1992). ARCH modeling in finance. Journal of Econometrics, 52(1), 5–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, C. (2008). Introductory econometrics for finance. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ding, Z., Granger, C. W. J., & Engle, R. F. (1993). A long memory property of stock returns and a new model. Journal of Empirical Finance, 1(1), 83–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engle, R. F., & Ng, V. (1993). Measuring and testing the impact of news on volatility. Journal of Finance, 48(5), 1749–1778.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, C. L., & Morgan, C. W. (2011). Food price volatility. In I. Piot-Lepetit & R. M’Barek (Eds.), Methods to analyse agricultural commodity price volatility (pp. 45–61). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Glosten, L. R., Jagannathan, R., & Runkle, D. E. (1993). On the relation between the expected value and the volatility of the nominal excess return on Stocks. Journal of Finance, 48(5), 1779–1801.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guida, T., & Matringe, O. (2004). Application of GARCH models in forecasting the volatilities of agricultural commodities. Université de Savoie and UNCTAD. Working Paper.

  • Hens, T., & Steude, S. (2009). The leverage effect without leverage. Finance Research Letters. doi:10.1016/j.frl.2009.01.002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jondeau, E., & Rockinger, M. (2003). Conditional volatility, skewness, and kurtosis: existence, persistence, and co-movements. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 27(10), 1699–1737.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jordaan, H., Grove, B., Jooste, A., & Alemu, A. G. (2007). Measuring the price volatility of certain field crops in South Africa using ARCH/GARCH approach. Agrekon, 46(3), 306–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kovacic, Z. J. (2008). Forecasting volatility: evidence from the Macedonian stock exchange. International Research Journal of Finance and Economics, 18, 182–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nasar, S. (1991). For Fed, a new set of tea leaves. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/05/business/for-fed-a-new-set-of-tea-leaves.html.

  • Nelson, D. (1991). Conditional heteroscedasticity in asset returns: a new approach. Econometrica, 59(2), 347–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pagan, A. R., & Schwert, G. W. (1990). Alternative models for conditional stock volatilities. Journal of Econometrics, 45(1), 267–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poon, S. H., & Granger, C. W. (2003). Forecasting volatility in financial markets: a review. Journal of Economic Literature, 41(2), 478–539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quandl Data Marketplace (2013) http://www.quandl.com.

  • Trujillo-Barrera, A., Mallory, M., & Garcia, P. (2012). Volatility spillovers in the U.S. crude oil, ethanol, and corn futures markets. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 37(2), 247–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsay, R. (2005). Analysis of financial time series. New York: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vercammen, J. (2011). Agricultural marketing: Structural models for price analysis. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, N., & Houston, J. (2015). The Comovement between Non-GM and GM Soybean Price in China: Evidence from Dalian Futures Market. Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.

  • Yang, J., Leatham, D.J., & Haigh, M.S. (1999). Agricultural liberalization policy and commodity price volatility: A GARCH application. Proceedings of 46th Agricultural Finance Conference: The Changing Nature of Agricultural Risks, Ontario, Canada.

  • Zakoian, J. M. (1994). Threshold herteroskedastic models. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 18(5), 931–955.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zivot, E., & Wang, J. (2006). Modeling financial time series with s-plus. New York: Springer science and business media.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naveen Musunuru.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Musunuru, N. Examining Volatility Persistence and News Asymmetry in Soybeans Futures Returns. Atl Econ J 44, 487–500 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-016-9517-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-016-9517-3

Keywords

JEL

Navigation