Title: Institutional investors' stocks portfolio strategies and commodity prices: a cross-correlation analysis in a financialisation context

Authors: Antonio Focacci

Addresses: School of Economics, University of Bologna, Piazza Scaravilli, 2 – 40126 Bologna, Italy

Abstract: New institutional players entered the futures markets with additional important capital inflows from 2000s onwards. Generally, labelled by the term financialisation of commodity markets, integration between traditional financial assets and futures markets raised several concerns for potential spill-over effects on commodity price levels and return volatilities. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the plausibility of a lead-lag relationship ignited by institutional investors portfolio management strategies. In order to pursue this goal, a cross-correlation function (ccf) is applied to stock exchange indexes and main international commodity spot prices. The key findings are that the overall effects of such an increased integration/participation appear quite controversial. Oil seem to support (with weak signals detected) this reaction mechanism. Substantially, not significant results are observable for industrial and agricultural commodities.

Keywords: financialisation; commodity prices; cross-correlation analysis; lead-lag relationship.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFMD.2019.104077

International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives, 2019 Vol.7 No.2, pp.101 - 123

Received: 16 Nov 2018
Accepted: 16 Jun 2019
Published online: 11 Dec 2019 *

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