To understand the diversification benefit of crude oil volatility, we examine the return-volatility relation in the crude oil market, given the interaction of the volatility (VOL) and the volatility-of-volatility (VOV). We develop a novel empirical model of the crude oil price and crude oil volatility index (OVX) returns incorporating both time-varying and state-dependent variances and correlations, thus allowing us to identify distinct market regimes of VOL and VOV. We find that the behavior of the return-volatility relation is contingent on the prevailing VOV regimes. Specifically, in a low (high) VOV regime, the relation becomes less (more) negative as VOL increases. These empirical results therefore imply that the diversification benefit of crude oil volatility is far from uniform across the different market states. Finally, using our proposed empirical model, we demonstrate the economic significance of recognizing both the time-varying and state-dependent variances/correlations in portfolio risk forecasting and construction.
In this paper, we look at the role of various oil jump tail risk measures as drivers of both U.S. headline and core inflation. Those measures are first computed from high-frequency oil future prices and are then introduced into standard regression models in order to (i) assess in-sample determinants of inflation, (ii) assess overtime the evolution of inflation drivers, (iii) estimate impulse response functions and (iv) forecast inflation out-of-sample for various horizons. Empirical results suggest that oil jump tail risk measures contain useful information to describe inflation dynamics, generally leading to upward inflationary pressures. Even after controlling from standard variables involved in a Phillips curve, goodness-of-fit measures show evidence of a gain, in particular for headline inflation. Overall, we observe that oil jump tail risk measures are contributing more to inflation dynamics since the Covid-19 crisis.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the existence and the nature of seasonality in LNG freight rates of different duration contract, over different market conditions (peak and troughs) for the period from December 2010 to June 2023. We employ the HEGY method and seasonal dummy variables to test for stochastic and deterministic seasonality, respectively. Then we use Markov Switching models to test for asymmetries in seasonal fluctuations across different market conditions. We reject the existence of stochastic seasonality for all freight series while results on deterministic seasonality indicate increases in rates in June, October, and November. We also found that seasonal patterns vary across market conditions, revealing that seasonal rate movements are more pronounced when the market is in downturn. Moreover, we found that the seasonal movements present similar patterns across different trading routes. The results have implications for stakeholders across the LNG value chain.
This paper investigates the asymmetric effect of G7 stock market volatility on predicting oil price volatility under different oil market conditions by using the quantile autoregression model. Both in- and out-of-sample results demonstrate the prediction superiority and effectiveness of the quantile autoregression model. The US and Canada's stock markets exhibit the strongest predictive ability across the entire distribution, while the UK demonstrates strong predictive power specifically during periods of high oil price volatility. Japan, Germany, France, and Italy as oil importers can predict low and median oil volatility. The strong predictability of G7 stock volatility may be attributable to their significant impact on the business cycle and investor sentiment. This asymmetric prediction ability arises not only from the average volatility shocks at various quantiles but also from the bad and good stock volatility at different quantiles. Further research suggests that bad stock volatility appears to be more predictable than good stock volatility, especially in high oil price fluctuations. Furthermore, the superiority and effectiveness of the quantile autoregression model in predicting oil volatility are proven to be applicable to emerging markets. This study may provide useful insights for policymakers, businesses, and investors to improve crude oil risk prediction and risk management under different market conditions.
This paper applies the Narrative-based Energy General Index (NEG) to forecast stock returns in the energy industry. The index is constructed using natural language processing (NLP) techniques applied to news topics from The Wall Street Journal. The results indicate that NEG outperforms in predicting future returns of the energy industry in both in-sample and out-of-sample, and the predictive power surpasses that of other macroeconomic variables. The asset allocation exercise demonstrates the substantial economic value of NEG. Furthermore, we document that NEG not only exhibits superior predictive power for energy sector returns but also provides valuable insights for the whole stock market.
There is extensive literature on problems involved in estimating implied parameters in the Merton Jump Diffusion model. Using simulated data, we use weighted non-linear least squares to estimate implied parameters in the four parameter jump diffusion model (JD) and in an eight parameter jump diffusion model with convenience yield (JDC). We find reliable and accurate implied parameter estimates for the JD model but biased and unreliable estimates for some parameters in the JDC model. However, for both models we estimate accurate option prices, usually within several basis points. We also use Bitcoin real data to estimate parameters and test the out-of-sample performance of the JDC model.

