FINANCIAL SPECULATION IMPACT ON AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY PRICE VOLATILITY: TGARCH APPROACH

Motivated by agricultural commodity price fluctuations and spikes in the last decade, we investigate whether financial speculation destabilizes the price of agricultural commodities. The aim of this research is to assess the impact of financial speculation on agricultural commodity price volatility. In our study we use weekly returns on wheat, soybean and corn futures from Chicago Mercantile of Exchange. To measure this impact, we apply autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) technique. We also propose a model with seasonal dummy variables to measure if financial speculation impact on price volatility differs among seasons. The results of our research indicate that financial speculation as an exogenous factor has either no effect or reduces the volatility of the underlying futures prices. Therefore, we conclude that the increase of non-commercial market participants does not make the agricultural commodity prices more volatile or this link is at least questionable.