On our very popular Metatrader platform, you can trade mini rolling spot futures Brent & WTI crude oil contracts. These very attractive bespoke retail contracts are OTC look-alikes based on the standard ICE Brent & WTI NYMEX front month futures contracts, quoted on a ‘Live’ and extremely competitive 5 cent spread with No commission and allowing you to trade a minimum of 100 barrels 1/10th of the minimum trade size 1 Lot (1000 barrels) on the exchange also excluding all the mandatory exchange clearing fees and larger margin requirement. Trading hours are currently between 07.15 and 21:00 London time for UK Brent & Gas Oil & 01:15 – 22:00 London time for US WTI.
With , you can also now trade an Gas Oil spot contract (GSO); Gas Oil is a product of Crude Oil used for heating and power generation, and shortly rolling spot Sugar followed by Coffee and Cocoa.
margin requirements for Brent, Gas Oil & WTI Contracts is 1% of Notional Value, for example buying the minimum contract size of 100 barrels of WTI @ $42.00 per barrel (100 Barrels x $42.00 = $4,200 Notional Value) therefore this would require a margin of $42.00, and the tick value is $1.00, as you are aware trading crude futures on exchange at present requires a margin of approximately 12-14% due to the recent volatility we have seen in the market.
Rolling spot Oil contracts, UK Brent (Oil) & US WTI, are based on the front month Futures contracts on the exchange and every month the Futures contracts Expire, the next month becomes the new front month and the contract is rolled out in line with this at No cost, therefore you can stay long or short of these contracts for as long as you wish to.
With for example if a customer was Long 1000bbls WTI when our benchmark WTI March 09 contract roll’s to April, at present there is a $5.87 contango between March and April (positive differential), therefore we would simply cash adjust customers positions in accordance to this, so your Long position of 1000bbls would gain $5,870 (1000 x 5.87 = $5,870) due to the new Front month price reference in April differential which we would then debit from your account alternatively if you were Short 1000bbls we would credit your account with $5,870 so then the customers position will be based on the new front month April WTI contract, there is always ZERO impact to the customers net P&L as a result of this procedure.
On , both Brent & WTI contracts are rolled on a monthly basis at the settlement of the front spread of the ICE Brent exchange contract the day before expiry with no charges. Both Brent & WTI contracts are rolled on the same day because many customers trade the arbitrage (Buy Brent & Sell WTI or vice versa) and if the contracts were to be rolled at different times this would seriously affect any arbitrage positions as one leg would jump by the front spread and the other would remain unchanged.
Oil has equally been a very successful product in terms of customer growth and trading volumes on MT4. So get onto to it and get FX 4 U Offshore.
