The puzzle of privately-imposed price limits: are the limits imposed by financial exchanges effective?

Some of the world’s largest futures exchanges impose daily limits on the price movements of individual contracts. Using data from three of the most active US commodity futures contracts, we show that these price restrictions are largely ineffective because traders are able to take similar positions using other contracts. When price limits become binding on the futures market, the associated (but unrestricted) options market becomes the price discovery market: much of the trading that would have occurred on the futures market migrates to the options market, and options prices accurately predict the (unconstrained) futures price the next day. We also show that the presence of options mitigates the effect of price limits on information revelation by documenting that futures markets reflect more accurate information on days following limit hits when the associated options were trading on the previous day. Overall, our evidence suggests that price limits in US futures markets have little effect on prices when options markets exist.Price limits, Regulatory evasion, Put-call parity, Satellite market, Price discovery

Support Service for Reciprocal Computational Resource Sharing in Wireless Community Networks

In community networks, individuals and local organizations from a geographic area team up to create and run a community-owned IP network to satisfy the community's demand for ICT, such as facilitating Internet access and providing services of local interest. Most current community networks use wireless links for the node interconnection, applying off-the-shelf wireless equipment. While IP connectivity over the shared network infrastructure is successfully achieved, the deployment of applications in community networks is surprisingly low. To address the solution of this problem, we propose in this paper a service to incentivize the contribution of computing and storage as cloud resources to community networks, in order to stimulate the deployment of services and applications. Our final goal is the vision that in the long term, the users of community networks will not need to consume applications from the Internet, but find them within the wireless community network

The puzzle of privately-imposed price limits: are the limits imposed by financial exchanges effective?

Some of the world’s largest futures exchanges impose daily limits on the price movements of individual contracts. Using data from three of the most active US commodity futures contracts, we show that these price restrictions are largely ineffective because traders are able to take similar positions using other contracts. When price limits become binding on the futures market, the associated (but unrestricted) options market becomes the price discovery market: much of the trading that would have occurred on the futures market migrates to the options market, and options prices accurately predict the (unconstrained) futures price the next day. We also show that the presence of options mitigates the effect of price limits on information revelation by documenting that futures markets reflect more accurate information on days following limit hits when the associated options were trading on the previous day. Overall, our evidence suggests that price limits in US futures markets have little effect on prices when options markets exist

The puzzle of privately-imposed price limits: are the limits imposed by financial exchanges effective?

Some of the world’s largest futures exchanges impose daily limits on the price movements of individual contracts. Using data from three of the most active US commodity futures contracts, we show that these price restrictions are largely ineffective because traders are able to take similar positions using other contracts. When price limits become binding on the futures market, the associated (but unrestricted) options market becomes the price discovery market: much of the trading that would have occurred on the futures market migrates to the options market, and options prices accurately predict the (unconstrained) futures price the next day. We also show that the presence of options mitigates the effect of price limits on information revelation by documenting that futures markets reflect more accurate information on days following limit hits when the associated options were trading on the previous day. Overall, our evidence suggests that price limits in US futures markets have little effect on prices when options markets exist

Market conditions, trader types and price–volume relation in energy futures markets

We investigate the asymmetric relations between trading volume and price changes, and trading volume and price volatility of energy futures contracts across maturities and under different market conditions. Using a relatively long sample of daily observations, we examine whether the impact of trading volume on returns and volatility of futures contracts can be time-varying and dependent on the market condition. We differentiate the market condition based on the slope of the forward curve into backwardation and contango. The results indicate that trading volume and returns are positively related when the market is in backwardation and negatively related when the market is in contango. In addition, the positive relation between changes in trading volume and volatility of futures contracts seem to be stronger when the market is in backwardation than when it is in contango. Finally, the results indicate that, to a certain extent, trade participation and trading activities of agents in energy futures markets can be explained by the slope of the forward curve which reflects the market condition and sentiment

Time-varying correlation between oil and stock market volatilities: Evidence from oil-importing and oil-exporting countries

This paper investigates the time-varying conditional correlation between oil price and stock market volatility for six major oil-importing and oil-exporting countries. The period of the study runs from January 2000 until December 2014 and a Diag-BEKK model is employed. Our findings report the following regularities. (i) The correlation between the oil and stock market volatilities changes over time fluctuating at both positive and negative values. (ii). Heterogeneous patterns in the time-varying correlations are evident between the oil-importing and oil-exporting countries. (iii) Correlations are responsive to major economic and geopolitical events, such as the early-2000 recession, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. These findings are important for risk management practices, derivative pricing and portfolio rebalancing

Correlates of loneliness among university students

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate level of loneliness, essential needs during university education, and relationships between loneliness, essential needs, and characteristics of university students. A sample comprising 721 students participated in the study. The mean age was 21.58 (SD = 1.73) with a range from 18 to 25. The majority of the students were female (70.6%) and were living in students' dormitory (67.5%) with low (87.8%) income, away from their parents. Methods The UCLA-R loneliness scale and sociodemographic questionnaire which includes an open-ended question on essential needs during university education were administered. Pearson-Product-Moment correlations were used to explore the relationships between participants' loneliness, needs, and characteristics. Results It was found that 60.2% of the participants experienced loneliness. Economical support (81.6%), social interaction (46.9%) and psychosocial support (35%) were the essential needs during university education reported by the participants. The study findings indicate that there were significant relationships between the needs of economical support, social interaction, and loneliness level of university students. Results also show that there were significant relationships among romantic relationship, parents' status and loneliness. Participants' loneliness levels were relatively higher who had not any romantic relationship and were not from married families. Conclusion The findings of this study provided essential information, about Turkish university students, concerning: level of loneliness and relationships that exist among loneliness, needs and sociodemographic characteristics. The findings also suggest implications for psychosocial practice. Because of the mean of loneliness were found to be high (45.49 ± 10.07), for this study, professionals need to pay attention to Turkish university students' psychosocial state, and need to empower them in establishing social relations

Stock markets and energy prices

Concerns about the effects of oil prices on stock markets ebb and flow with the rise and fall in oil prices themselves. This paper reviews selected empirical evidence on the relationship between energy price shocks and stock markets. Existing evidence indicates that although a general increase in oil prices tends to favor stock markets of energy-exporting countries more than their oil-importing counterparts, a demand-led rise in oil prices tends to favor stock markets across the globe through the stimulating impact on the aggregate economy. Whereas, supply-driven surge in oil price shocks carries a less significant role in explaining fluctuations in stock returns. A brief assessment on the role of speculation in driving oil prices during 2007–2008 is also presented