[Crude Oil]

26 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

that is correct, there are no overnight charges on futures contracts. timing as ever is the problem, note in the chart that though there was tailing off in price from April 17th the collapse was sharp when it came as those holding longs tried to sell them but found no takers (lack of storage capacity) and so they had to pay to get rid of them in the end (negative oil price).

So even if a collapse around next expiry does come price may still rise for a while yet and so there is risk of getting stopped out of a short. 

This is the type of circumstance where an option might offer the better trade.  

Worth noting that some options expire one or two days before the actual future contract does. So if that is the case, with the option you miss out on the last day of fun that the US Oil May contract showed. 

The same can apply to automatic rollover if I'm not mistaken, i.e. you get rolled over to July contract before the day of the June contract expiry.

[US OIL]

On 28/04/2020 at 15:51, Crush1884 said:

Is anyone taking advantage of the overnight charge by shorting US oil just before 10pm and closing on re-open at 11pm?

By my calculations the current spread would offer a £23 per point overnight charge (minus interest on any leverage taken). 

Shorting the DFB and then going long on a futures contract should mitigate any price movement in the minute or 2 between open and close (understand there could be some slippage).

Am I missing something glaringly obvious as I usually do? I understand this isn't a typical opportunity because of the abnormal spread but it seems to be there nonetheless.

Yes, I did this and got a nice little email from IG:

 

I replied back asking what did I do wrong and if I could see any T&Cs that advised against this, but no reply yet...anybody know?

Anyhow, the gap between the front contracts have reduced significantly so the opportunity is much lower than it used to be...

Cheers

[US OIL]

Does anybody know where the IG US Oil Spot price comes from?

It has been quite higher than historical daily WTI spot published by EIA:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rwtcD.htm

E.g., on 13 April the EIA reported $22.36 and in IG it was around $28?

tks!