Pairs Trading in Commodity Futures: Evidence from the Indian Market

The pairs trading, one of the techniques of the statistical arbitrage, is a market-neutral trading strategy that employs time series methods to identify relative mispricing between securities based on the expected values of these assets. The main objective of this study was to investigate the profitability and risks of pairs trading based on the selection of pairs through minimising the sum of squared deviation (distance method) and the selection based on cointegration tests (cointegration method) using the future daily prices of commodities traded and listed on The Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) over 2011-2017 on a rolling basis. The pairs trading strategy was performed in two stages: the formation period and the trading period. The strategy involved long position in one commodity and short position in other commodity of the pair identified. The study revealed that pairs trading in commodities were significantly profitable, with average annualised profitability of up to 59 percent, including transaction costs.