Price of U.S. crude oil crashes below $0, first time in history
We are in the upside down.
A bizarre thing just happened: futures on U.S. crude oil went negative for the first time ever, as billions of people stay at home to slow the spread of coronavirus.
The anti-COVID measures have led to a global oil supply glut that in turn has led to storage space filling up. The price of oil is negative. It's like they'd be willing to pay you to take it off their hands. Wild.
From Reuters:
The May U.S. WTI contract fell $19.06, or 104.3%, to a discount of 79 cents a barrel at 2:09 p.m (1809 GMT) after touching an all-time low of -$1.43 a barrel. Brent was down $1.85, or 6.6%, at $26.23 a barrel.
The June WTI contract is trading more actively at a much higher level of $21.6 a barrel. The spread between May and June was more than $23, the widest in history for the two nearest monthly contracts.
Investors bailed out of the May contract ahead of expiry later on Monday because of lack of demand for the actual oil. When a futures contract expires, traders must decide whether to take delivery of the oil or roll their positions into another futures contract for a later month.