Can Soybean Tariff Shocks Trigger Abnormal Asymmetric Phenomena in Futures Markets? Evidence from the 2025 U.S.–China Trade Friction
Published in International Journal of Financial Studies (JCR Q2), 2026
Trade-policy shocks are a recurring source of risk in agricultural commodity markets, but their transmission into futures prices is rarely symmetric. This paper uses the 2025 U.S.–China trade friction as a setting in which tariff news arrived in discrete, well-identified announcements, and asks whether soybean futures responded differently to escalation than to de-escalation.
The analysis documents abnormal asymmetric behaviour around tariff events and characterises how quickly that asymmetry decays, with implications for hedging and margin-setting in agricultural futures.
Recommended citation: Chen, A.W. & Zhang, Z.* (2026). "Can Soybean Tariff Shocks Trigger Abnormal Asymmetric Phenomena in Futures Markets? Evidence from the 2025 U.S.–China Trade Friction." International Journal of Financial Studies, 14(1), 1–25.
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