Twenty years of jumps in commodity markets

Abstract

In this article, we provide statistical evidence around jumps affecting commodity returns. Using nearly 20 years of daily data, we use Laurent, Lecourt, and Palm's (2011) methodology to jump extraction, and discuss various aspects of the estimated jump activity. On average across various commodity markets, we find a high number of days for which returns exhibit the presence of jumps, consistently with the intuition that commodities are affected by large price fluctuations. We emphasize that the post-jump average return depends on the commodity sector considered (e.g. agriculture, energy, or metals). We also show evidence of a jump-to-volatility channel for commodities (similar to the effect usually found for equities). Finally, we diagnose around 40 dates during which commodity indices, stocks, bonds and currencies `co-jump’, revealing a tail dependence between standard and alternative assets.