Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e...
by caleb1666 on Monday April 20, 2020 @01:03PM
(#22925819)
Do we know what percentage of futures participants are speculators just at the casino? It seems like the percent of players actually making/taking physical delivery is like 0.0000001%
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e...
by gezh on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:22PM
(#22926739)
Currently, speculators make up roughly 2/3rds of the outstanding WTI contracts [1].
In most commodities contracts taking/making physical delivery by physical players is rare. The physical delivery option is there to make sure that the underlying commodity market and the futures market converge; and you don't need someone to actually deliver to make that happen. The threat of delivery/taking delivery is usually enough.
[1]You can get that info from the CFTC here: https://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/inde..., namely in this report: https://www.cftc.gov/dea/options/deanymelof.htm . Look for "CRUDE OIL, LIGHT SWEET".
Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e...
by dmurray on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:05PM
(#22926562)
Oil producers and distributors, airlines, power companies etc are major players in the oil futures markets. Much more so than, say, the gold markets where almost everyone's purpose is speculation, but less than agricultural futures like wheat and corn.
It's still probably <10% by volume, but maybe your .0000001% was hyperbole.