Commodity predictability analysis with a permutation information theory approach

It is widely known that commodity markets are not totally efficient. Long-range dependence is present, and thus the celebrated Brownian motion of prices can be considered only as a first approximation. In this work we analyzed the predictability in commodity markets by using a novel approach derived from Information Theory. The complexity-entropy causality plane has been recently shown to be a useful statistical tool to distinguish the stage of stock market development because differences between emergent and developed stock markets can be easily discriminated and visualized with this representation space [L. Zunino, M. Zanin, B.M. Tabak, D.G. Perez, O.A. Rosso, Complexity-entropy causality plane: a useful approach to quantify the stock market inefficiency, Physica A 389 (2010) 1891-1901]. By estimating the permutation entropy and permutation statistical complexity of twenty basic commodity future markets over a period of around 20 years (1991.01.02-2009.09.01), we can define an associated ranking of efficiency. This ranking is quantifying the presence of patterns and hidden structures in these prime markets. Moreover, the temporal evolution of the commodities in the complexity-entropy causality plane allows us to identify periods of time where the underlying dynamics is more or less predictable. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.