August 22nd, 2020, 10:23 pm
(my background: quite a lot of years in the ags space).
FWIW I haven't read the this whole research paper ("not free, no go"), hence know very little about the authors' methodology. I just want to stress that cattle market (as well lean hogs) are quite "specific" markets in the sense that they are in the hands of a few players (Tyson, Smithfields...). These are very difficult markets to trade for outsiders. Actually, there are many jokes around trading cattle/lean hogs ("got suicidal, started trading cattle?") among ags traders. You would trade grains, but not farm animals. I believe it has been so for decades (authors used trading data from the 70s).
I'm a also puzzled by the "period October 11, 1978, through July 31, 1979" used in this study. Cattle markets are obviously (super) seasonal and based on cycles. I mean a hardly 10-month long time length seems too short (but once again, I know almost nothing about authors' methodology, what type of trading it is, etc...).