This study aims to analyse the precrisis period on the oil markets with a primary objective of assessing the role of speculation in the commodity's price development and its volatility. First it depicts the rapidly increasing speculative activity on the futures market together with the parallel oil price surge. The speculation is initially proxied by non-commercial traders' positions and subsequently quantified by Working's T-index. The paper then uses speculative traders' positions and both spot and futures prices to test for Granger causality within the framework of VAR models. For the sake of consistency it also evaluates causal links between speculation and inventories level. Further the study investigates the speculation impact on volatility of oil prices by employing various approaches in volatility quantification including GARCH models. Contrary to expectations we find that the speculatio's impact on both prices and their volatility is rather insignificant. In the last chapter we therefore seek for an explanation of the oil price developments by examining the market fundamentals. The interaction of supply and demand finally gives substantial evidence for understanding the price developments in the precrisis period.

The goal of this thesis “Futures trading of commodities as a retail trader” is creation of investment suggestion, based on analysis of possibilities, markets and factors influencing the price. In the first part are defined basic terms and information for better orientation on the futures commodity market. In the next part are analysis of the major commodity markets, groups of commodities and detailed analysis of interest commodities – gold and silver. The last third part of the thesis engage in creation of strategy for trading of commodity futures on gold and silver, which is the basic element for the final investment suggestion.