The Halloween effect on the agricultural commodities markets

Abstract

The financial markets are impacted by various seasonal anomalies. One of the best known of them is the Halloween effect. The Halloween effect means that the summer period (May–October) asset returns are lower compared to the winter period (November–April) asset returns. In the paper, price series of 20 major agricultural commodities over the 1980–2015-time period are tested for the presence of the Halloween effect. The data show that 15 out of the 20 commodities recorded a higher average winter period than summer period returns and in 10 cases, the differences are statistically significant. The data also show that out of the 5 commodities with higher summer period returns, only in the case of poultry the differences are statistically significant.