Hi The /ES has been in contango from a few days ago. And I think that is very unusual. Futures fair price is spot - dividends + interest which may be the causes ? Do you think there are some strategy with options that could take advantage of that? Thank you.
ES has rallied, which lowers dividend yield. And interest rates have risen. So the gap between has shrunk to ≈zero.
I tried to arb the ES years ago. No joy. (That was when the diff ran 10 points or so... can't imagine arbing working when there is such a small spread.... but I could be wrong.) The "apparent" arbable diff back then turned out to be illusionary when it came to execution.
Interest rates slightly up? And, the future has a delta higher than 1... because of the interest. So if projected dividends stay the same in dollar terms, the future outperforms the spot slightly when we move up. Together with maybe a small rise in rate... A rise in rate of 10 bp is about 0.20 in the 1-month future, 2.5 points in 1-year. And the move from 2450 to 2550 means a 1-year future goes up by an extra 1.25 points compared to spot, assuming 1.25%. (Basically, the 1-year future has a delta of 1.0125)
Sure, you can trade ES (or Gold, or...) calendars as an interest-rate play, but it's more direct to just trade Eurodollar or 2Year futs.