Curriculum·Senior·R401
Derivatives Foundations
10 October 2025. A US announcement of 100 percent tariffs on imports from China, effective 1 November, was the direct catalyst.
Start with lesson 15 lessons · about 2.9 hours · free account to read in full
Lesson 1 opens on
The May 2020 WTI contract, 20 April 2020
63 per barrel, the first time the WTI futures price had fallen below zero since trading began in 1983. The contract obliges physical delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, where storage was all leased and, according to traders, essentially full, so a holder of a long position who could not take delivery had to pay a counterparty to take the obligation away. At Interactive Brokers the problem reached hundreds of customer accounts holding long WTI or E-mini crude (QM) futures into settlement.
The lessons
- R401-01The instrument setDistinguish the four instruments by what obligation each one createsabout 33 min · opens on The May 2020 WTI contract, 20 April 2020
- R401-02Position mechanicsSeparate notional, margin, equity and unrealized profit, and state which one movesabout 33 min · opens on Mango Markets, 11 October 2022
- R401-03The three pricesName the three prices a derivative venue publishes and state what each one controlsabout 33 min · opens on The Binance.US flash crash, 21 October 2021
- R401-04The funding rateState what funding is, who pays whom, and why the instrument requires itabout 43 min · opens on Ether funding before the Merge, September 2022
- R401-05Basis, carry, and structureDefine basis, annualize it, and state what forces it to zeroabout 34 min · opens on XIV and the volatility spike, 5 February 2018