Futures trading, spot price volatility and market efficiency : evidence from European real estate securities futures title

![CDATA[In 2007 future contracts were introduced based upon the listed real estate market in Europe. Following their launch they have received increasing attention from property investors, however, few studies have considered the impact their introduction has had. This study considers two key elements. Firstly, a GARCH model is used to examine the impact of futures trading on the European real estate securities market. The results show that futures trading did not destabilize the underlying listed market. Importantly, the results also reveal that the introduction of a futures market has improved the speed and quality of information flowing to the spot market. Secondly, we assess the hedging effectiveness of the contracts using two alternative strategies (naive and OLS models). The empirical results also show that the contracts are effective hedging instruments, leading to a reduction in risk of 64%.]]