Good volatility, bad volatility and the cross section of commodity returns

Résumé fourni par la source

This article studies whether asymmetries in volatility help explain the cross section of commodity returns. We decompose realized variance into upside and downside components and construct a normalized difference measure, the relative signed jump (RSJ), following Bollerslev et al. (2020). A trading strategy that goes long the top tercile of commodities with the highest RSJ and shorts the bottom tercile delivers a statistically and economically significant annualized excess return of -6.29%. We also find that our tradable RSJ factor explains the cross section of commodity returns beyond well-established factors in a multivariate price setting context. Our results also show that the pricing ability of volatility asymmetries is distinct from other higher order moments such as realized skewness. • RSJ is a pricing factor based on upside and downside volatility. • RSJ earns a significantly negative risk premium in the commodity market. • A trading strategy using RSJ earns 494 percent cumulative returns over 35 years. • RSJ is distinct from other well-established pricing factors.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.