The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negative oil

Re:The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negati... by treis on Saturday December 19, 2020 @05:24PM (#25481830)

Very tired of these sorts of articles that bury the lede in a mountain of fluff. I don't care about the stereotype of someoen from Essex. I want to know if these people manipulated oil trades and, if so, how.

Anyone have a TLDR?

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Re:The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negati... by Dylan16807 on Saturday December 19, 2020 @05:30PM (#25481872)

Just about all of that text isn't fluff, it's the point of the article, telling the stories of these particular people and giving a detailed background of the market.

I'll happily tell you that there appears to be no evidence of manipulation, so you can avoid reading an article that doesn't interest you, but I don't think it's fair to call it a buried lede.

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Re:The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negati... by crazyideaman on Saturday December 19, 2020 @05:30PM (#25481879)

A group of retail traders buy contracts requiring them to buy at settlement price. (TAS) They then sell contracts to get them to a flat position so they don't actually have to take physical stock.

This part is very routine. The unusual thing is that the price actually went negative so when they "bought" to cover they were actually paid nearly $40. So they profited both off the short position and again to buy to cover.

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Re:The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negati... by ec109685 on Saturday December 19, 2020 @06:17PM (#25482221)

Agree, still not sure how much they risked for that huge profit.

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