Vol.:(0123456789) Asia-Pacifc Financial Markets https://doi.org/10.1007/s10690-020-09320-6 1 3 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Predicting Wheat Futures Prices in India Raushan Kumar 1 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Futures markets perform their economic roles of price discovery and hedging only when they are efcient. One of the important features of efcient market is that one cannot make abnormal profts from the futures markets by trading in it. This paper addresses the question of whether Indian wheat futures prices can be forecast. This would add to our knowledge whether wheat futures market is efcient, and would enable brokers, traders and speculators to develop proftable trading strategy. We employ the economic variable model to predict the wheat futures prices, and employ out of sample point forecasts. We also evaluate the robustness of our results by employing several alternative specifcations, viz. ARMA process and artifcial neu- ral network technique. We then test the statistical signifcance of point forecast using the Diebold and Mariano test. We consider random walk orecast as the bench mark. In order to predict the evolution of wheat futures prices, we use traders’ expectations about the futures prices, a number of economic variables and futures prices (lagged) of wheat. The study fnds that the futures price of wheat cannot be forecast, and the wheat futures market is efcient. Keywords Futures market · Forecasting · Artifcial neural network (ANN) and agricultural derivative market JEL Classifcation G13 · C45 · Q14 “Derivatives are an extremely efficient tool for risk management” “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction” –Warren Buffett * Raushan Kumar raushanecondse@gmail.com 1 Department of Economics, Zakir Husain Delhi College (Eve), University of Delhi, New Delhi, India