Lead-lag effects between Brent Crude Futures and its respective spot prices

Abstract

This article aims the analyses of the causality and temporal precedence relationships between the spot and futures prices of Brent oil, those last ones inherent to financial markets. In order to achieve this objective, the main tools used were: Johansen cointegration test; Granger causality/Block Exogeneity Wald test (GCBEW); generalized impulse response function and variance decomposition of forecast errors, those three last ones were estimated based in a Vector Error Correction Model (VEC), adjusted to the analyzed variables. The results indicated that, for the stipulated period, there was a pricing lightweight leadership from the futures contracts to the prices of spot market. However, as a conclusion of the article, the understanding is that this small difference, calculated in several econometric tools, cannot be considered enough to indicate that the Brent oil future market would be distorting its respective spot prices, despite the economic fundamentals of the physical market, such as production, consumption and stockpiling processes. Therefore, management decisions in industries exposed to crude oil prices should be aware of both physical and future markets’ prospections.