Price discovery and convergence in the Indian commodities market

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether futures markets play a dominant role in the price discovery process. The rate of convergence of information from one market to another is analyzed to infer the efficiency of futures as an effective hedging tool.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a two‐regime threshold vector autoregression (TVAR) and a two‐regime threshold autoregression for six commodities. The regimes (or states) are defined around the expiration week of the futures contract.FindingsThis paper finds evidence for price discovery process happening in the futures market in five out of six commodities. However, the rate of convergence of information is slow, particularly in the non‐expiration weeks. For copper, gold and silver, the rate of convergence is almost instantaneous during the expiration week of the futures contract affirming the utility of futures contracts as an effective hedging tool. In case of chickpeas, nickel and rubber the convergence worsens during the expiration week indicating the non‐usability of futures contract for hedging.Originality/valueThis paper extends the framework developed by Garbade et al. by superimposing a two‐regime TVAR model to quantify the price discovery process. It is the first paper to analyze the differential impact of price discovery and convergence during expiration week (compared to non‐expiration weeks) for the Indian commodities market.