Saturday, March 7, 2026
HomeNewsThe Day Oil Went Negative, These Unlikely Traders Made $660M

The Day Oil Went Negative, These Unlikely Traders Made $660M

Date:

Related stories



Over the span of a few hours one day in April 2020, a guy called Cuddles and eight of his pals from the freewheeling world of London’s commodities markets rode oil’s crash to a $660 million profit. Now regulators are scrutinizing their once-in-a-lifetime trade.

Read more about the story in Bloomberg Businessweek:

#Oil #Storylines #BloombergQuicktake

——–
Like this video? Subscribe:
Become a Quicktake Member for exclusive perks:

QuickTake Originals is Bloomberg’s official premium video channel. We bring you insights and analysis from business, science, and technology experts who are shaping our future. We’re home to Hello World, Giant Leap, Storylines, and the series powering CityLab, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Green, and much more.

Subscribe for business news, but not as you’ve known it: exclusive interviews, fascinating profiles, data-driven analysis, and the latest in tech innovation from around the world.

Visit our partner channel QuickTake News for breaking global news and insight in an instant.

source

Latest stories

44 COMMENTS

  1. April 2020 was the ultimate proof of the Coastline Paradox. When the 'measuring stick' of liquidity broke, the distribution went negative. It proves that risk isn't about the future—it's about how clearly you can see the present liquidity gap.

  2. I dont believe for a second that these guys were crooked. They were a tiny team against all losing financial institutions .. and the commodity was oil during covid… no way did they have an inside line to insider information…

  3. I made my best ever trade that day too… but only in the thousands of dollars in profit. Sold crude at $54 and bought at $28. Never imagined it would go lower. Thought it was going to cause systemic issues. But the sun still came up the next day.

    My trading platform would only allow 200% leverage, it is always stressful trading with 200% leverage. Also, stops would self-cancel so it was risky letting it trade over the weekend. I don’t trade anymore. But for traders, just remember that you don’t have to trade every day. Only once every few months, or even years will do it.

  4. Why were there so many early middlemen commits? China needs to figure out how their brokerage houses hired people to place the calls & puts on the oil markets to begin with, & why this brokerage conspiracy was fighting to keep the market bottomed to buy devalued oil contracts at the key 🔑 time.

  5. Can’t even imagine the feeling of sitting on all those options, knowing you’re going to clean up as the price has already dropped precipitously, then seeing it go negative….you’re literally getting paid to take a future you can then flip for a locked in positive price. Getting paid on both sides. An incredible wrinkle that couldn’t exist in the stock market for example

  6. I’ve invested significant time into studying the markets, but the recent crypto downturn was challenging. I’m now looking for educators who teach from real-time trading experience rather than purely theoretical or retrospective analysis.

  7. Пользуюсь уже 6 связкой от данный аккаун сана, сделал суммарно более 33 тысяч долларов, через мерно благодарен вам.

  8. The negative price was for a specific futures contract requiring physical delivery of oil into storage. Storage capacity became exhausted at this point in time. Traders with contracts panicked (how could they take delivery?) and desperately paid others to take this obligation off their hands.

Leave a Reply to @MarlaKagan Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here