alt Hacker NewsThe actual real world price for immediate delivery is called the spot price. The price of the future is just the price for a contract to have it delivered on a certain date.
Spot prices: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_spt_s1_d.htm
Futures prices: https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/
As I understand it, Oil Futures come in two varieties, one kind result in you actually taking the oil when they happen, which is why that negative price craziness years back because if you're holding the futures and haven't got anywhere to put that oil that's a problem for you. The other kind though is some sort of cash equivalent, I guess maybe it resolves to the current spot price or something at the moment it stops being a future ?
So, for these mispriced Futures, what happens? If I buy $1M of Brent Crude futures and then just wait, and when my futures resolve that much Brent Crude would be worth $1.5M at spot prices do I... get $1.5M and somebody in the oil industry just lost their shirt? Do they just ship me enough Brent Crude to sell it for $1.5M at spot prices? What if they were lying and they can't deliver ?