The Performance of Chicago Board of Trade Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures Contracts after Recent Changes in Speculative Limits

Three attributes of futures contract behavior important for market performanceliquidity, volatility, and convergenceare investigated before and after the 2005 increase in speculative position limits for corn, soybean, and wheat contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade. The analysis of liquidity and market depth reveals a sharp increase in open interest for corn, soybeans and wheat beginning in late 2005. The increase in position limits likely accommodated the increase in speculative interest in corn, soybean and wheat futures, but some of the increase would have occurred without the increase as new market participants received hedge exemptions. The analysis of price volatility revealed no large change in measures of volatility after the change in speculative limits. For corn and soybeans, the picture that unfolds relative to convergence patterns is one of weakness, but not failure. For wheat, the picture that unfolds relative to convergence patterns is not only one of weakness, but failure to accomplish one of the fundamental tasks of a futures market. The persistence and growing magnitude of the delivery location basis in wheat suggests a problem with the contract specifications.corn, futures contract, performance, soybeans, speculation, wheat, Marketing,

AN EVALUATION OF CROP FORECAST ACCURACY FOR CORN AND SOYBEANS: USDA AND PRIVATE INFORMATION SERVICES

Using 1971-2000 data, we examine the accuracy of corn and soybean production forecasts provided by the USDA and two private services. All agencies improved their forecasts as the harvest progressed, and forecast errors across the agencies were highly correlated. Relative accuracy varied by crop and month. In corn, USDA 's forecasts ranked as most accurate in all periods except in August during recent times, and improved more markedly as harvest progressed. In soybeans, forecast errors were very similar with the private agencies ranking as most accurate in August and September and making largest relative improvements in August during recent times. The USDA provided the most accurate October and November forecasts.Crop Production/Industries,

HOW TO GROUP MARKET PARTICIPANTS? HETEROGENEITY IN HEDGING BEHAVIOR

Using a generalized mixture model, we model individual heterogeneity by identifying groups of participants that respond in a similar manner to the determinants of economic behavior. The procedure emphasizes the role of theory as the determinants of behavior are used to simultaneously explain market activities and to discriminate among groups of market participants. We show the appealing properties of this modeling approach by comparing it with two often used grouping methods in an empirical study in which we estimate the factors affecting market participants' hedging behavior.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Playing the odds in clinical decision making: lessons from berry aneurysms undetected by magnetic resonance angiography

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Complex Choices: Producers Risk Management Strategies

Producers have a wide variety of risk management instruments available. How do producers make a choice of risk management instruments? Using the recently developed choice bracketing framework, we examine what risk management strategies producers use and identify the factors that drive their risk management decisions. Our results identify that producers use a wide variety of combinations of risk management instruments and that they bracket their choices into sets of alternative risk management instruments. Using multinomial logit models to estimate the choice process provides information about the factors that influence producers' decision making. The results show that broad bracketing producers use different risk management instruments than narrow bracketers. Policy makers and financial institutions can improve the performance of their programs and products when they are able to identify the bracketing level of segments of producers.Risk and Uncertainty,

Identification, analysis, and linkage mapping of expressed sequence tags from the Australian sheep blowfly

Background: The Australian sheep blowfly Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) is a destructive pest of the sheep, a model organism for insecticide resistance research, and a valuable tool for medical and forensic professionals. However, genomic information on L. cuprina is still sparse.Results: We report here the construction of an embryonic and 2 larval cDNA libraries for L. cuprina. A total of 29,816 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were obtained and assembled into 7,464 unique clusters. The sequence collection captures a great diversity of genes, including those related to insecticide resistance (e.g., 12 cytochrome P450s, 2 glutathione S transferases, and 6 esterases). Compared to Drosophila melanogaster, codon preference is different in 13 of the 18 amino acids encoded by redundant codons, reflecting the lower overall GC content in L. cuprina. In addition, we demonstrated that the ESTs could be converted into informative gene markers by capitalizing on the known gene structures in the model organism D. melanogaster. We successfully assigned 41 genes to their respective chromosomes in L. cuprina. The relative locations of these loci revealed high but incomplete chromosomal synteny between L. cuprina and D. melanogaster.Conclusions: Our results represent the first major transcriptomic undertaking in L. cuprina. These new genetic resources could be useful for the blowfly and insect research community

Methotrimeprazine versus haloperidol in palliative care patients with cancer-related nausea: a randomised, double-blind controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES:Methotrimeprazine is commonly used for the management of nausea but never tested formally against other drugs used in this setting. The aim was to demonstrate superior antiemetic efficacy. DESIGN:Double-blind, randomised, controlled trial of methotrimeprazine versus haloperidol. SETTING:11 palliative care sites in Australia. PARTICIPANTS:Participants were >18 years, had cancer, an average nausea score of ≥3/10 and able to tolerate oral medications. Ineligible patients had acute nausea related to treatment, nausea for which a specific antiemetic was indicated, were about to undergo a procedure or had received either of the study drugs or a change in glucocorticoid dose within the previous 48 hours. INTERVENTIONS:Based on previous studies, haloperidol was used as the control. Participants were randomised to encapsulated methotrimeprazine 6·25 mg or haloperidol 1·5 mg one time or two times per day and assessed every 24 hours for 72 hours. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:A ≥two-point reduction in nausea score at 72 hours from baseline. Secondary outcome measures were as follows: complete response at 72 hours (end nausea score less than 3), response at 24 and 48 hours, vomiting episodes, use of rescue antiemetics, harms and global impression of change. RESULTS:Response to treatment at 72 hours was 75% (44/59) in the haloperidol (H) arm and 63% (36/57) in the methotrimeprazine (M) arm with no difference between groups (intention-to-treat analysis). Complete response rates were 56% (H) and 51% (M). In the per protocol analysis, there was no difference in response rates: (85% (44/52) (H) and 74% (36/49) (M). Complete per protocol response rates were 64% (H) and 59% (M). Toxicity worse than baseline was minimal with a trend towards greater sedation in the methotrimeprazine arm. CONCLUSION:This study did not demonstrate any difference in response rate between methotrimeprazine and haloperidol in the control of nausea. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:ACTRN 12615000177550