Commodity Futures Trading Commission

We examine the aggregate portfolio of 20 large Commodity Pools (“Select Funds”) likely to account for much of the “long cash-short futures” activity in recent years. Our Select Funds were predominantly short futures, with a notional market value of $1.1 trillion at the end of December 2023. They comprised the bulk of the $1.4 trillion short positions held by the leveraged funds in the sample. The aggregate portfolio contains long Treasury securities totaling around $1 trillion, but also short securities totaling about $200 billion; the net position totals $800 billion at the end of 2023. Net Treasury cash positions are at the high end or above several prior estimates of likely basis trader positions. We confirm and quantify suspected peaks and valleys within the activity. Net Treasury cash positions increased $400 billion in the two years prior to December 2019, then fell off sharply through 2021, and ramped up $700 billion through 2022 and 2023. We also observe significant non-US G-10 sovereign bond positions with a gross value of $1 trillion; the net short position was just over $100 billion at the end of 2023.

illegally transport across the customs border is gunpowder. Gunpowder is a multi-component solid explosive mixture capable of burning in parallel layers without external access to oxygen, releasing a large amount of thermal energy and gaseous products. The difference in the burning rate of gunpowder depends on the grain size, wall thickness, surface coating, and composition. This explosive substance is a material for military use, and is also used for peaceful civilian and research purposes. The structure of conducting the research and processing the obtained results is considered using the example of the most common explosive substancenitrocellulose (smokeless) gunpowder.

Abstract Beginning in mid‐2021, U.S. food prices surged at the fastest pace in decades, due to pandemic‐related supply chain and labor shortages, rising transportation costs and wages, food commodity and fertilizer shocks resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and perhaps demand‐side effects of recent monetary and fiscal stimulus. We decompose the path of domestic food prices into explanatory factors, grouped by supply or demand orientation. Our findings indicate that although supply‐side factors explain most of the observed price changes, the demand‐side factors we studied—particularly the money supply—have a stronger correlation with recent food price increases than they have, historically.

Abstract We use rich regulatory data on intraday transactions and end‐of‐day positions to study how high‐frequency traders (HFTs) affect futures market quality. Panel estimation evidence shows that greater participation by HFTs is strongly associated with improvements in market quality (as measured by traded bid–ask spreads and the Amihud price impact), whereas higher rates of aggressive trading, such as those observed when HFTs trade directionally to reduce their positions, produce a partially offsetting effect. We find that while futures contracts are sensitive to market uncertainty (as measured by VIX), they are more sensitive to their own price volatility. We take advantage of the 2015 change in Chicago Mercantile Exchange's daily settlement methodology for agricultural commodities to address potential endogeneity using a fixed‐effects difference‐in‐difference setup. Our results are robust to relying on alternative estimation techniques, using overly conservative (clustered) standard errors, modeling various forms of cross‐sectional and temporal dependence, and studying each market separately.

Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan are struggling from lack of trade diversification and post COVID-19 economic woes. These issues can be addressed via regional cooperation and expansion into each other's markets. Pakistan’s new geo-economics ambition and efforts to reach out to Central Asian Republics (CARs) is gaining momentum, with Gwadar port being touted as the go to port for CARs. Pakistan has a lot to offer these countries in terms of being a reliable source of imports, as well as being the closest outlet for their ocean trade. Presently, issue of access via unstable Afghanistan remains a major challenge, which has been a regular point of academic discussion. However, there hasn't been much discourse on the challenges and opportunities that await Pakistan, once stability in Afghanistan is regained and physical access issues between CARs and Pakistan are resolved. This work employs limited quantitative analysis to examine trade potential and proposes practical solutions to barriers to trade that must be addressed if these countries wish to be more than pawns in the New Great Game.

Abstract The transaction tax on futures reduced trading volume during the 1920s and 1930s but had no apparent effect on volatility or open interest. The relative magnitude of the tax was highest for intermediaries and appears to have substantially reduced intra‐day trading, but it did not dramatically affect hedging activity or the level of cash or futures prices. Pit traders were particularly distressed by a 400% increase in the tax rate in 1932 and effectively widened spreads by avoiding trades at the minimum price increment. This doubling of the minimum tick size was formally implemented in exchange rules 1 year later.