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Chinese Journal of Management Science ›› 2023, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (12): 34-45.doi: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2020.2035

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Do Commodity Futures Improve the Performances of Traditional Portfolios? Evidence from the Chinese Market

De-hua SHEN(),Yue LI   

  1. College of Management and Economics,Tianjin University,Tianjin 300072,China
  • Received:2020-11-02 Revised:2021-07-22 Online:2023-12-15 Published:2024-01-06
  • Contact: De-hua SHEN E-mail:dhs@tju.edu.cn

Abstract:

Many foreign researchers have studied the role of commodity futures in traditional portfolios. Most of them believe that commodity futures can improve the performances of traditional portfolios through increasing returns or reducing risks of portfolios. However, few studies investigate the commodity performances of portfolios in China and the conclusions are controversial.Based on the market of stock, bond, and commodity futures in China from 2015 to 2019, the in-sample and out-of-sample performances resulting from adding commodity futures are analyzed. The data of CSI 300 Index, CSI Aggregate Bond Index, and a series of Wind Commodity Indexes are employed, respectively. 9 different portfolio strategies including 1/N, Strategically-Weighted, Risk-parity, Reward-to-Risk Timing, Minvar, Mean-Variance, Bayes-Stein shrinkage, Black-Litterman strategy, and portfolio selection with higher moments are used. And investors are divided into conservative and aggressive investors.The empirical results indicate that the commodity performances of portfolios are depended on the strategy employed. Firstly, out-of-sample performances are worse than in-sample performances. Under the out-of-sample setting, 1/N, Strategic Weighted, Risk Parity, Minvar, and Black-Litterman strategy show that commodity futures are beneficial to all kinds of investors. Reward-to-Risk Timing, Mean-Variance, Bayes-Stein shrinkage, and portfolio selection with higher moments show opposite performances. Secondly, considering the “view” return and the reliability matrix, the Black-Litterman strategy is the best of all portfolio strategies. Thirdly, weights of commodity futures and the rolling Sharpe ratio are reported. Commodity futures in weights with volatilities of more than 5% often show poor performances. Besides, bonds overweight was obvious during the sample period.The findings of this paper suggest that commodity futures in China do improve the performances in traditional portfolios when appropriate strategies are chosen. Besides, it is crucial to estimate the parameter in the models.

Key words: commodity futures, asset allocation, Black-Litterman strategy, Sharpe ratio, omega ratio

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