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The purpose of this study is to understand the tracking errors of leveraged exchange-traded funds (LETFs) on gold and demonstrate improved tracking performance by dynamic portfolios of gold futures.

The author formulates and solves a constrained quadratic minimization problem to construct static replicating portfolios of both leveraged and unleveraged benchmarks in gold; a dynamic constant leveraged portfolio using gold futures is used to track the path of the leveraged gold benchmark.

The results suggest that market-traded LETFs do not track a leveraged position in gold effectively over a long horizon, and the dynamic leveraged futures portfolio achieves lower tracking errors over multiple years.

The research informs us that investors should consider alternative portfolios with gold futures, rather than holding a leveraged gold exchange-traded funds to achieve a desired leveraged exposure in spot gold.

The main contribution of the study is the use of gold futures to dynamically replicate a gold benchmark with any given leverage ratio and the detailed comparison of the tracking performance of LETFs versus optimal static and dynamic futures portfolios.

The purpose of this paper is to research and analyze the price of gold futures based on heterogeneous investors' overconfidence.

This paper divides the traders of gold futures market into two kinds: the speculators and arbitrageurs, and then constructs a market equilibrium model of futures pricing to analyze the behaviors of the two kinds of traders with overconfidence. After getting the decision-making function, the market equilibrium futures price is attained on the condition of market clearing. Then, this paper analyzes how the overconfidence impacts on futures price, volatility of the price of gold futures and the effects on individual utility.

Under different market conditions, the overconfidence psychological impacts of heterogeneous investor on the price and volatility of futures are different, sometimes completely opposite.

In the past literature, the relationships between overconfidence and the price or volatility are positive; however, the study shows that sometimes it is positive, and sometimes it is negative.

This study aims to examine whether global gold futures returns volatilities and trading activities are threshold cointegrated.

This study considers 11 gold futures markets, including 3 developed futures markets and 8 developing futures markets. This study also analyzes futures trading activities for speculators and hedgers. This study uses a nonlinear threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) and a threshold Lagrange multiplier (LM) test proposed by Hansen and Seo (2002).

The findings show that global gold futures return volatilities (FRV) and trading activities are not always threshold cointegrated. Most developed futures markets exhibit threshold cointegrated of gold FRV and trading activities for speculators and hedgers, whereas some developing futures markets exhibit threshold cointegrated. It suggests that speculators and hedgers trading activity conveys valuable information about changes in market volatility dynamics. On the other hand, responses to error-correction effect among gold FRV and trading activities for speculators and hedgers are dramatically different for developed and developing gold futures markets, respectively, particular in the unusual regime.

Research results show that threshold cointegration between global gold FRV and trading activities matters but not always. Thus, threshold relations have improved the authors’ understanding of global gold futures price discovery process with a threshold. For research limitations, this study uses only near month futures contracts, as it contains more information but not using far month contracts.

The findings may have important trading implications with additional insights in a(n) (un)usual regime further regulation may be detrimental to the price responsiveness in futures markets if increased price volatility and trading volume are attributed to liquid and efficient markets.

The findings may have important policy implications with additional insights. For example, in a(n) (un)usual regime greater regulatory restrictions may be warranted to decrease market inefficiencies if increased price fluctuations are caused by increased trading volume. Policymakers could enhance futures trading liquidity or restrict speculating positions.

This study examines whether global gold futures returns volatilities and trading activities are threshold cointegrated by using a nonlinear TVECM. The authors detect that some global gold futures returns volatilities and trading activities are threshold cointegrated but some are not. Hence, the findings determine whether the volatility–volume threshold relation holds across countries and investigate the determinants of cross-country differences in different traders.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand the different risks associated with a business, focusing on price risk and the importance of price risk management in business; understand and evaluate the products available for hedging price risk through exchange-traded derivatives in the Indian scenario; and understand and evaluate the different strategies for price risk management through exchange-traded derivatives in the Indian scenario.

The case study pertains to a small business, M/s Sethi Jewellers. The enterprise is being run by Shri Charan Jeet Sethi and his son Tejinder Sethi. The business is located in Jain Bazar, Jammu, UT, in Northern India. The business was started in 1972 by Charan Jeet’s father. They deal in a wide range of jewelry products and are well-established jewelers known for selling quality ornaments. Tejinder (MBA in marketing) was instrumental in revamping his business recently. Under his leadership, the business has experienced rapid transformation. The business has grown from a one-room shop fully managed by Tejinder’s grandfather to a multistory showroom with several artisans, sales staff and security persons. Through his e-store, Tejinder has a bulk order from a client where the client requires him to accept the order with a small token at the current price and deliver the final product three months from now. Tejinder is in a dilemma about accepting or rejecting the large order. Second, if he accepts, should he buy the entire gold now or wait to buy it later at a lower price? He is also considering hedging the price risk through exchange-traded derivatives. However, he is not entirely sure, as he has a few apprehensions regarding the same, and he is also not fully aware of the process and the instruments he has to use for hedging the price risk on the exchange.

The case study is aimed to cater to undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students in the field of finance. This case study can be used for students interested in commodity derivatives, risk management and market microstructure.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

The equation of unified knowledge says that S = f (A,P) which means that the practical solution to a given problem is a function of the existing, empirical, actual realities and the future, potential, best possible conditions of general stable equilibrium which both pure and practical reason, exhaustive in the Kantian sense, show as being within the realm of potential realities beyond any doubt. The first classical revolution in economic thinking, included in factor “P” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of a model of ideal conditions of stable equilibrium but neglected the full consideration of the existing, actual conditions. That is the main reason why, in the end, it failed. The second modern revolution, included in factor “A” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of the existing, actual conditions, usually in disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium (in case of stagnation) and neglected the sense of right direction expressed in factor “P” or the realization of general, stable equilibrium. That is the main reason why the modern revolution failed in the past and is failing in front of our eyes in the present. The equation of unified knowledge, perceived as a sui generis synthesis between classical and modern thinking has been applied rigorously and systematically in writing the enclosed American‐British economic, monetary, financial and social stabilization plans. In the final analysis, a new economic philosophy, based on a synthesis between classical and modern thinking, called here the new economics of unified knowledge, is applied to solve the malaise of the twentieth century which resulted from a confusion between thinking in terms of stable equilibrium on the one hand and disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium on the other.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the fluctuations in gold prices within the Saudi Arabian market and to develop a reliable forecasting model to aid market participants and policymakers in making informed decisions.

In this study, we employ a rigorous time series analysis methodology, including the ARIMA (Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) model, to analyze historical gold price data in the Saudi Arabian market. The approach involves identifying optimal model parameters and assessing forecast accuracy to provide actionable insights for market participants.

The study showcases that the autoregressive properties of past gold prices play a pivotal role in capturing the inherent serial correlation within the market, enabling the ARIMA model to effectively forecast future gold price movements with accuracy.

Our study primarily focuses on quantitative analysis, whereas few qualitative parameters are not included. Future studies may benefit from incorporating qualitative factors and expert opinions to enhance the robustness of gold price predictions and capture the full spectrum of market dynamics.

Participants and policymakers may find this study helpful in navigating the complicated Saudi Arabian gold market. By understanding financial stability and investment decisions more thoroughly, individuals and institutions may be able to manage their portfolios more effectively.

By combining historical insights with advanced ARIMA modeling techniques, this research provides valuable insight into gold price dynamics in the Saudi Arabian market.

This study explores the price linkage between the Chinese commodity futures market and other dominant futures markets, and examines the forces behind the price linkages. The contribution by the trading hour innovations in the United States (or United Kingdom) market to the overnight price changes in the Chinese market is larger in scale than the contribution by the daytime information from the Chinese market to the overnight returns of the corresponding US (or UK) market. Several futures have significant interactions of the domestic and foreign factors in the price linkages while the Chinese domestic factors explain better the global market price linkage in some futures (aluminum, gold, and corn), demonstrating the leading role of the Chinese futures markets in these world markets.

The commodity and equity derivatives have a close resemblance between them in trade practices and mechanisms, which makes it easy for the investors to combine these two assets classes for building up their portfolio. The diversification of investment among asset classes builds some relation between them. The integration of market within a country is necessary to bring in a smooth and balanced economic growth. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the spillover between the equity and commodity futures markets which will be helpful not only for the investors but also for the policy makers, producers and the regulators.

To examine the spillover between the equity and commodity market, the major benchmarking indices of these markets, namely COMDEX of MCX, Dhaanya of NCDEX and NIFTY 50 of NSE, were chosen. NIFTY 50 index was chosen as representative of equity market due to its composition of most active constituent stocks than any other broad market index of Indian stock market. As the commodity market indices are not been traded, their constituent commodities were taken for the study. Thus, 11 MCX-COMDEX constituents such as Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc, Aluminum, Nickel, Lead, Crude oil, Natural gas, Kapaskhali and Mentha oil and eight NCDEX-Dhaanya constituents such as Castor seed, Chana, Cotton seed oilcake, Jeera, Mustard seed, Refined soy oil, Turmeric and Wheat futures prices were taken against the NIFTY 50 futures prices with daily trading data for ten years starting from January 1, 2006 till December 31, 2015 to analyze their spillover effect. The return series data were used to test the spillover between equity and commodity futures market as it gives the crux of investors’ diversification through the Vector Autoregression (VAR) model and verified with Impulse Response Function by testing the null hypothesis, H₀, that there is no return spillover between the equity and commodity futures market.

The investors move from equity to commodity when there is a threat in equity market and vice versa, thereby diversify their risk for those commodities which are vulnerable to global and domestic pressures in the economy. Investigating the spillover between equity and commodity market gives an insight of market integration effect. A nation can achieve its economic growth easily when its markets are integrated.

The commodity indices are still notional indices in the market; therefore, individual constituent commodities of commodities indices were considered with the benchmarking equity futures index, which is one of the limitations of the study.

The integration of market within a country is necessary to bring in a smooth and balanced economic growth.

Most of the past studies dealt only with few commodities and equities and not with the broad-based benchmarking indices. This paves way for enquiry into the commodity and equity markets integration with the major constituent commodities traded in the economy. Hence, this paper looks into the presence of spillover between the equity and commodity markets. The VAR model is verified with the impulse response function which explains the reaction of any dynamic system in response to a pulse change in another. The impulse response function is presented graphically for easy and better understanding.

Considering the unique data of the gold investor sentiment index in Thailand, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the bivariate dynamic relationship between the gold investor sentiment index and stock market return, as well as that between the gold investor sentiment index and stock market volatility, using the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) methodology. The author presents and discusses the findings both for the full sample and at the industry level. The results support prior literature that stocks in different industries do not react similarly to investor sentiment.

The PVAR methodology with the GMM estimation is found to be superior to other static panel methodologies due to considering both unobservable time-invariant and time-variant factors, as well as being suitable for relatively short time periods. The panel data approach improves the statistical power of the tests and ensures more reliable results.

In general, a negative and unidirectional association from gold investor sentiment to stock returns is observed. However, the gold sentiment-stock realized volatility relationship is negative and bidirectional, and there exists a greater impact of a stock’s realized volatility on gold investor sentiment. Importantly, evidence at the industry level is stronger than that at the aggregate level in both return and volatility cases, confirming the role of gold investor sentiment in the Thai stock market. The capital flow effect and the contagion effect explain the gold sentiment-stock return relationship and the gold sentiment-stock volatility relationship, respectively.

The gold price sentiment index can be used as a factor for stock return predictability and stock realized volatility predictability in the Thai equity market.

Practitioners and traders can employ the gold price sentiment index to make a profit in the stock market in Thailand.

This is the first paper to use panel data to investigate the relationships between the gold investor sentiment and stock returns and between the gold investor sentiment and stocks’ realized volatility, respectively.

The 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.

The 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.

This 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.

This 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.