How Futures Markets Reflect People's Expectation About Future Prices

As a future business leader, I chose to read the book “The mind of the Market” by Michael Shermer When I first purchased this book I didn't know what to expect, I just knew that I had a series of questions from my macroeconomics, sociology, and history class that would like to explore.

Understanding the fact, that falling commodity prices and rising dollar cannot last indefinitely, and maybe even bottomed out for now, I see a lot of perspectives within these markets in one year period. Moreover, a lot of forecasters expect inflation to move toward two percent goal during this year, which will result in substantial rise in commodity prices. Although, it is a controversial issue according to the FED projections for the current and the next year, which have been lowered from previous numbers (Table#1).

Some emergent countries have put a lot of effort to find new reservoir or find the best way to recover oil from deep seas such as The pre-salt in Brazil. America has high projections for the future with fracking. However, lower prices would put at risk investments in unconventional sources. For example, tar sands, shale oil, deep sea and fracking. Our forecast is that the crude oil price tend to slowly rise until the market balance it self to avoid oversupply especially because of the weakening in the global oil

Due its standing within the world’s economic and political systems, along with its notoriously high liquidity, oil trading is still something that should carry appeal to active traders. With a sharp eye and knowledge of the market, oil can easily make up a key element within your investment portfolio. Helping you make that a reality, the following looks at exactly how you

From 2014, the crude oil price has dropped in a sudden since the global economic downturn, oversupply of crude oil and the appearance of new energy. Global economy fatigued, and thus the demand of crude oil was not strong,

Not only the volatility prediction were accurate, the mean part also provides considerably nice fit. With the excellent fit from our prediction model, we expect our predictions to be fairly dependable. Nonetheless, when comparing actual future return with our predicted return and volatility obtained from 5-day ahead rolling forecast procedure, the results were rather unsatisfactory. All of the predicted volatilities were considerably high and did not move along with real fluctuations in return series, which resulted in very significant value at risk. In addition, the return predictions were no much better than just using sample means, which were all very close to zero, to predict future return. The prediction vs actual return plot for 60 days is shown below.

For example, the Intercontinental Exchange while oil prices have not been decided on by oil producers such as Niami refinery fires, Nigerian Pirates and global oil markets. The laws of demand and supply are also predicted by the increase and decrease in the prices of oil. Oil prices are driven by the increase in demand for oil which has limited or completely destroyed the gains for suppliers and producers. While the U.S still consumes more oil than any other country, it is evident from the increase in oil demand that developing countries such as China, India and Japan are driving oil prices higher by their continous growth in oil demand (Anderson, 1).

prices, regulations, and innovations) are forecasted and inputted into the model and the behavior of oil

Graph 1 represents the major companies and nations which product crude oil. It also represents how the bent crude oil price has fluctuated from 2004 until 2014. From 2004-2008 it is evident that there is a steady rise in oil prices, from $35-$150 per barrel. Towards the end of 2008 it is evident that there is a significant drop in oil prices, from $150- $32 per barrel. This is due to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) where the stock market collapsed on October 28, 1928, through this came the rapid decrease in oil prices. From 2009-2011 there is a steady increase in oil prices which was caused by the stock market repairing itself from impact of the GFC. In 2013 we are able to see declining oil

markets since December of 2000, when the Commodities Futures Modernization Act removed it from the items regulated by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and C.F.T.C. Without control, the price swings in step with the actions of speculators that do not take delivery of the commodity, but wager on the price of future delivery and then sell the contracts if the markup is positive for them. With so many players in the futures markets, the actual users of the commodity are forced to buy the oil on long-term contracts that allow them to benefit from economies of scale, by the size of the purchase, and they get a hedge against inflation by purchasing well in advance of their actual need. Industrial users of oil and its derivatives make contract purchases to lock in a level of supply for their needs, but whenever there is a spike in the price of oil, the industrial users will claim that the spike forced them to raise their prices. We gullibly believe it and some of us pay more and some of us stop buying. The present group is small, and nonexistent when it comes to gasoline purchases. We are addicted to our cars and driving, thus we know the link between oil and gasoline, and we are quick to accept that OPEC raised the gas price theory on the evening news. This long narrative is to tell you that as you look for the shift in the equilibrium point of price to demand, understand that the movement is human nature and not actual market forces. Honest price changes convey information about the product or its manufacture, or its shipping cost, or if a tariff has been imposed. In every case, the data is an honest statement of the burden of material or labor or transport or taxes that has been revealed. With oil, there are too many liars inputting data into the price system for their own benefit. The worst feature of oil is that it is priced by cartels and by speculators and that only by hedging our purchases can we stop the

Shale revolution started about ten years ago due to technological developments such horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The increasing exploitation of shale oil significantly affected the oil market. In this report, WTI oil price was predicted over the next five years using historical data. A discussion of major factors that historically affected oil prices is presented. Historical events were linked to current and expected future events to evaluate the predicted prices. To further evaluate the forecasted prices, they were compared to the predicted prices by the Economy Forecast Agency.

During this period, the price of ‘Brent’ crude oil (like WTI) reached an all time high in July of 145.61 USD/BBL in response to strong economic conditions prior to the Global Financial Crisis hitting in early 2009. The price of ‘Brent’ crude oil also similarly bottomed out in 1970, with a record low of 2.23 USD/BBL and following the GFC, prices sharply fell, with prices at 62.04 USD/BBL as of April 2015. Over the 45-year period, significant events such as the GFC, the Iran/Iraq war, the Iranian revolution and various OPEC cuts (as shown in graph 1) has caused the price of ‘Brent’ crude oil and crude oil as a whole to historically be fairly volatile and as such, these various political and economy-wide factors provide an explanation for volatility in prices over the past 45 years.

Unlike Brent, North American crude production is up amid a "shale oil revolution." To capture this fact, we use two variables published by the EIA. The first, CANADA, is the weekly amount of Canadian crude imported into the Petroleum Administration for Defense's Midwestern District ("PADD 2") where Cushing is located. The second, RIGS, is a monthly count of rotary rigs operating onand off-shore in the 50 United States. Both series increase steadily over most of our sample period, accelerating sharply from 2009 (RIGS) or 2011 (CANADA). Both variables should be inversely related to the spread: ceteris paribus, more North American supply should push down WTI's price—especially if the oil faces difficulties reaching international markets.

Anybody from Texas who drives a truck has felt glad about paying less money in regards to purchasing gasoline at a gas station. The truth is that the price of gasoline has been dramatically affected by the recent plunge in oil prices. There are different theories that explain the reason of this phenomenon. This paper will analyze the current oil market, as well as the key players who are winning the “war” of the oil prices.

1. Oil prices are almost entirely driven by supply and demand. On the supply side, OPEC seeks to control the prices by virtue of controlling the output of its member countries, which are responsible for around one-third of the world's oil production (OPEC, 2012). That OPEC can do this is facilitated by the fact that bringing new oil production online takes a long time. Thus, by setting output on a monthly basis, OPEC can control the supply. OPEC's actions have a strong influence on prices because demand is largely predictable and incremental. The demand this month will be related to the demand next month, since oil demand tends to be for usage of a recurring nature.