The price of oil rose 15.7% yesterday, so why didn’t the related exchange traded fund (ETF) shoot up accordingly?
John Hyland, chief investment officer at the U.S. Commodity Fund, the firm behind the United States Oil Fund (USO), says that some commodity funds that deal in futures contracts actually roll to the second month before the actual expiration date.
“In our case, it’s two weeks. We sold all the Octobers two weeks ago,” Hyland says, meaning that what investors were actually looking at was the November contracts, which were up 6.62%.
Aside from the events of Monday, “we’d consider that a huge move,” Hyland says.
Hyland also points out that people who are dealing with the front month contracts on the last day of trading are typically players in the oil industry and those who actually want their oil delivered on Oct. 1.