Question

58. About the Term Structure of Commodity Prices :

A. Contango refers to futures prices that rise with time to maturity (The futures price trades below the expected spot price)
B. Backwardation implies a negative roll yield

C. Contango implies a positive roll yield

D. Backwardation refers to futures prices that decline with time to maturity (The futures price trades below the expected spot price)

59. About the components of Commodity Futures Excess Returns:

A. The key driver of the spot return is the term structure of futures prices, while the key driver of the roll return might be something like inflation

B. The roll return comes from changes in the price of the nearby futures contract

C. The key driver of the roll return is the term structure of futures prices, while the key driver of the spot return might be something like inflation

D. The spot return comes from maintaining a commodity futures position, selling an expiring futures contract and buying a yet to expire contract

60. We know that Diversification Return = Geometric Mean Return - Strategic Return.

A. The strategic return is a key concept in diversification return and it has very clear economic meaning.

B. The diversification return then might be argued to serve as a measure of the added geometric return that diversification and/or rebalancing can generate through the reduction of risk caused by assembling imperfectly correlated risky assets into a portfolio.

C. Strategic return is never used as a hypothetical benchmark for evaluating portfolios’ actual geometric mean returns.

D. The strategic return can be obtained through any portfolio rebalancing of the underlying assets

Answer 1

About the term structure of the commodity prices, contango is a scenario in which the spot price is trading at a discount to the future price, and the backwardation scenario in which the future prices is trading at a discount to the spot price.

Backwardation implies a positive roll yield and contango implies a negative role yield.

So, the correct answer would be-

option( d)Backwardation refers to futures prices that decline with time to maturity (The futures price trades below the expected spot price)