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A comment on Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending. Parent comment

Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by aguyfromnb on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:00PM (#22926527)
>I asked why they weren't prepared on Friday.

What, exactly, do you expect them do to "prepare"? Friday they had more time to unload the contracts, and today they have less.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by eru on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:24PM (#22926760)
How to prepare:

Sell futures on Friday, buy today (to close out the position). Profit from the predictable price difference.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by rocha on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:42PM (#22927612)
They have been trying to sell, but none was buying. The closer you get to the expiration date, the lower you are willing to go to sell. Since contracts expire tomorrow, traders are willing to go all the way to avoid getting physical delivery.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by eru on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:54PM (#22927783)
That's why I was suggesting the opposite:

(Short-) sell last Friday, buy today at about 0 to close the position.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by edoceo on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:22PM (#22927376)
Was it predictable tho?
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by shadowgovt on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:53PM (#22927770)
Yes, it was predicted successfully (by everyone who is no longer holding a contract). It was also not predicted successfully (by everyone paying through the nose so they won't have to find a place to stash some barrels of a volatile compound).
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by eru on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:58PM (#22927834)
It wasn't predicted successfully on average. Otherwise Friday would have already anticipated today's price.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by fredophile on Monday April 20, 2020 @06:24PM (#22929449)
How far do you want to take that argument? If successfully predicting it would mean that prices dropped to zero on Friday then shouldn't that have also been successfully predicted and impacted the price on Thursday? What about Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday?
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by eru on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @03:20AM (#22932774)
Yes, that's exactly right.

But no one expects perfect predictions far into the future.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by eru on Monday April 20, 2020 @03:31PM (#22927487)
Well, that was exactly the question!
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