Macroeconomic Factors and Oil Futures Prices: A Data-Rich Model

Abstract

I study the dynamics of oil futures prices in the NYMEX using a large panel dataset that includes global macroeconomic indicators, financial market indices, quantities and prices of energy products. I extract common factors from these series and estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression for the maturity structure of oil futures prices. I find that latent factors generate information that, once combined with that of the yields, improves the forecasting performance for oil prices. Furthermore, I show that a factor correlated to purely financial developments contributes to the model performance, in addition to factors related to energy quantities and prices.Crude Oil; Futures Markets; Factor Models