Funded PhD in Financial Economics of Precious Metals

Through the generous sponsorship of the LBMA, Trinity Business School seeks applicants to enter to study for a PhD in the broad area of the economics and finance of the Precious Metals market. The successful applicant will receive a bursary “The London Bullion Market Association Bursary” which is valued at STG£14,000 per annum. Supervision will be conducted jointly by Professor Brian Lucey (Trinity College Dublin) and Dr Fergal O’Connor (York Management School)

The Financial Economics of Silver, Platinum and Palladium

Special Issue- Call for Papers

“The Financial Economics of Silver, Platinum and Palladium”

The White Metals: Silver, Platinum and Palladium, have gained in prominence in investors minds over the last decade in part due to the development of new financial instruments, such as ETFs, which increased investors ability to hold these precious metals as investments. At the same time, and in contrast with the gold, they have increased in importance for industrial production – from solar cells to catalytic converters. Their existence in these two spaces simultaneously and the contradictions this can cause makes understanding the financial economics underlying these markets both interesting and important.

 

Papers are therefore invited for a special issue on International Review of Financial Analysis  on the financial economics of silver, platinum and palladium. Papers should be submitted via the elsevier EES system  by 1 November 2016. The Special Issue will be edited by Professor Brian Lucey, Editor in Chief, Professor Jonathan Batten, Special Issues Editor and Professor Fergal O’Connor, Guest Editor. Papers should address the financial economics or econometrics of these precious metals, white metal derivatives, the global market, the relationship of white metals to other assets, the role of mining stocks, global supply/demand drivers, the microstructure of white metals markets, forecasting of white metals, monetary roles and the role of white metals as an investment asset. We welcome both theoretical and empirical approaches.

 

Papers should be submitted to IRFA in the normal manner by 1 October 2016. Papers should be submitted viahttp://ees.elsevier.com/finana/, selecting White Metals Special Issue as article type. Please note that the standard submission fee remains in place for this special issue. We reserve the right to accept papers but to place them in regular issues of IRFA as opposed to the Special Issue.

 

Please feel free to contact any of the special issue authors if you wish to discuss the suitability of a paper for the special issue.

Silver fix, fixes in silver, Holmes’ razor, poisson distributions and MRDA

Last weekend I and some others posted a working paper on gold and silver price suppression (there’s no evidence for same) on SSRN. In it we noted that there were large movements in and around the times of option expiries, and mused that this was similar to patterns in other markets where traders manipulate the price. Then this happened.

Gold Manipulation, redux – the Swiss Miss

Gold markets are under investigation by regulators, again. At one level nobody should be surprised that banks are constantly in the firing line for regulatory intervention. They brought it on themseleves. At another level ,one might wonder when investigations reach diminishing marginal returns. As ever Zerohedge, long on tinfoil millinery, is frothing and fretting. 

7 things we know about gold…

So, one major area of my research is on gold. Here is an update on where that research is at. Click here for the downloadable versions or look at my SSRN page