Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Agricultural and Resource Economics

Committee Chair

Xiaoli Liao Etienne

Committee Co-Chair

Alan Collins

Committee Member

Alan Collins

Committee Member

Peter Schaeffer

Abstract

The impact of public reports on price fluctuations has been widely investigated in many commodity markets, but little attention has been paid to the lumber market. In this thesis, we examine the impact of two housing market reports, namely the New Residential Construction (Housing Starts) and the New Residential Sales reports, on the U.S. lumber futures market. Our results suggest that the housing starts report does indeed affect lumber market volatility, while the New Residential sales report exerts a minor impact on lumber price volatility. Price volatility is measured by changes future contract prices for lumber. We further find that the effect of the two reports on volatility differs depending on the level of lumber inventory and the nature of the news. When inventory is low, larger-than-expected housing starts have the largest effect on lumber volatility. During periods of abundant inventory, lower-than-expected housing starts increase the volatility most. For the new home sales reports, we find that while lower-than-expected sales do not affect the volatility of lumber prices, larger-than-expected sales do increase the volatility.

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