Oil is celebrating the anniversary of its worst day ever with some early losses

Five years ago today marked one of the all time crazy days in the commodity futures markets.

The May 2020 WTI contract started the day at $17.85 and absolutely, truly imploded. It held for a time at the big round numbers like $10 and $5 and made a stand at zero then completely crumbled to a low of -$40.32 per barrel.

It eventually settled at -37.63 a day before settlement in a fall of 306% or $55.90 on the day.

Once it rolled to the following month, the market began to find storage and sorted itself out.

It was also a good day for this analyst as a month earlier I predicted that oil prices would go to zero (to the derision of many -- read the comments, and the tweet).

But it was a really good day for nine traders in Essex that made $660 million that day.

In a mockery of the norms of commerce, the Vega crew had ended up being paid both for the futures they’d sold when oil was positive during the day and for those they bought via TAS. That, combined with the profit from the spread trades, resulted in a total take of $660 million for the nine biggest earners, according to the trading data. Demetriou, who’s 31; Pickering, 25; and Younger, 22, pocketed in excess of $100 million each, while Roase made about $90 million. Commins took home $30 million or so. Even his son, George, who’s in his early 20s with little apparent trading experience, made $8 million.

RIP to whoever was on the other side of that trade.

As for today's, trade WTI is down 93-cents to $63.75 as weekend reports highlighted progress on US-Iran talks.