Gold futures rollover

[amir128]

Hello all.

I had some open positions in gold Apr2021 futures. They all rolled over, just a few minutes ago. We are still one week away from April. Can someone explain please.

Regards.

[Stonk]

6 hours ago, amir128 said:

Hello all.

I had some open positions in gold Apr2021 futures. They all rolled over, just a few minutes ago. We are still one week away from April. Can someone explain please.

Regards.

 

The short answer is that gold futures expire on the 4th business day prior to the first calendar day of the contract month, which is 26 March 2021.

This is detailed here: https://www.ig.com/ie/markets/commodities/commodities-cfd-costs-and-details.  The expiry date rules for futures can be pretty random.  The take-home message from that page is: assume nothing -- and certainly not that an April future will last until April!

An easier way to know a specific expiry time is from the Info section, as in my image below.  Mind you, this indicates that the Gold April 2021 future expires at 18:30 on the 26 March 2021, so although the rollover is imminent it does appear to have happened a day early.

 

 

[Stonk]

Aha, I just spotted this in the Rollover block of the Info section:

Usually, initial position closed at official closing level of day before last dealing day +/- closing spread; new position in next contract opened at official closing level of the new contract from same day, +/- opening spread.

Goodness knows why, though.