Hot from the oven. So summary, cash settled contracts will not be available for trading until the last day (They will follow the physically delivered contracts), so 2 business days prior to the contract expiry will be the last trading day for all contracts. Opening or increasing positions will not be accepted 5 business days prior to actual expiration, only reducing or closing out positions will be accepted.
Many FCMs are worried about volatility after what we saw in the May crude. Some are placing the front month on liquidation only, some are asking for 200-300% of margins etc. These are not "normal times" by any means, not in the trading world nor the real world....
Makes sense. They don't want you to go in full margin when the market could just come unhinged at any moment.....
I hope the system is set up for negative values now as the Saudis have 25 full oil tankers heading to the US right now.
I have positions in these products and never got this notice -- how did you get it? This whole debacle has really exposed IB as a clown show. They like to present themselves as head and shoulders above the other brokers, but their systems are trash. I just spoke to support and they have no plans to support the $0 and negative strike oil options trading on CME today. Edit: Checked my bulletins on both TWS and Mobile and see nothing...
Oh, how come you didn't get that notice in your bulletins? That's a flaw from IB for sure. Just to highlight, I don't currently have positions or even orders in any of the mentioned products (I have existing positions in a related instrument, SCO), but this notice is irrelevant to those positions anyway. So they are not supporting negative options stirkes, wow, they are screwing their customers. I mean, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't unless their system does not support negative strikes, i.e. a technology limitation rather than a business one.
I have yet to see a trade in any negative strike in WTI LO Jun20. I see some low-ball bids, and no offers. Not sure any MMs, hedgers, or speculators, know how to theoretically price them. The +.5 strike is trading heavily with big open interest. In three weeks, front month Jun20 is either going to be a shit show like May20, or have minimal volume with hardly any open interest after everyone has exited or rolled into Jul20.
Yep, no notice here either, thought I dont trade the CL Still, good luck trying to find this on the website. IB not doing a good job of getting info out. Petterfey needs to kick some ass