As unprecedented and historic as this global coronavirus induced shutdown has been, it keeps throwing curveballs at us that only a few weeks ago seemed too absurd to even be worth hypothesizing over.
The lastest unprecedented development was the most spectacular collapse in the history of commodity trading. $22 was shocking enough. Then we got barrels trading at $8 on the spot market a few days ago. But that was only warming us up for the main event.
People’s jaws were on the floor yesterday afternoon when oil contracts for May delivery fell under one dollar. Fifty cents for 55 gallons of oil? Surely it couldn’t get any worse than that. And moments later, it did exactly that.
Traders were so desperate to avoid taking delivery of physical oil they became willing to pay people to take their oil. That’s just how bad the current situation is. And not just a dollar or two. The day closed with oil trading at minus $37 dollars. That’s…
