Item — HN Reader

No, the price of a contract for future delivery to a specific location went negative just before the delivery date, at a time when there was almost no unoccupied oil storage nor transport capacity at said location.

In that circumstance you might sell your right to some oil for almost nothing rather than deal with the consequences of accepting it. You might even pay someone to take it off your hands.

Options is “right but not obligation”. Physically settled futures are an obligation at maturity.

1 comments

Thanks for correction, that is true!

(Both instruments are not that popular in my country, so my daily language is to put both of them as synonym, while they are different animals in some details)

There are cash settled futures there are closer to options in that they’re purely financial, but even those don’t have optionality at maturity.

Generally a dangerous thing to have as synonyms regardless, otherwise you end up with a coal barge in the east river https://thedailywtf.com/articles/special-delivery

Remembering: WTF was quite popular 20 years ago! :)

Regarding this story: I guess for most private participants, physical delivery is not possible/excluded

Your guess would be wrong. If you’re trading physically settled commodity futures, and don’t close before the settlement date, you are now the owner of a large quantity of your commodity of choice.

It just happened today: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1siq4m2/any...

Not sure if this is true - there is this Bloomberg evergreen from 2015:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time...

How did she not get to buy oil while the reddit guy got it delivered?

And down in your reddit thread someone says: > This is fake but this has happened before years(decades?) ago, hence why brokers added to t&c that they will close out unrolled contracts on your behalf so retards playing oil futes and cfds don't end up having barrels of oil shipped to their nearest port <

Trying to buy a single barrel of oil <> getting assigned on a futures contract. An assigned long isn't getting a physical barrel either, they're transferring into a pipeline/storage facility/truck.

You're right that your broker will do all they can to avoid you shooting both you and them in the foot. But your agreement with your broker does not control your relationship with the counterparty to your futures contract. If the broker doesn't (or can't) close your position in time you('re both) on the hook.