The storage at a loss paradox of positive inventories despite inadequate spot-futures price spread coverage of storage costs is an unresolved issue of long-standing interest to economists. Alternative explanations include risk premiums for futures market speculators, convenience yields from having inventories on hand, and the mismeasurement/aggregation of data. T-test analyses of disaggregated data suggest soybean price behavior consistent with intertemporal arbitrage conditions and corn price behavior that may imply convenience yields.
