02
Jun
2011
Adventures in Wikipedia
Not sure how long it will stay there, but the entry for “Backwardation” in Wikipedia seems to be OK to me. Yet someone appended in the beginning of the article:
“Backwardation and contango are the opossite [sic–RPM ]of what is being described below. The graph shown is wrong.”
If Goldfingermember* were here, I’m sure he would ask, “Ishn’t zhat weird?”
* Oops I unparodied the parody. If Goldfinger were here, he would probably say, “Is Bond still alive?”
The entry seems OK. I think people might get confused by the idea of “normal backwardation”. I don’t spread comm. futures but whenever I discuss this stuff with other traders we only refer to backwardation / contango in the outright sense(is part of the curve over/under the spot;) the cost of carry is a seperate issue and one that doesn’t concern us since we can’t do an arb at risk-free rates or store/swap the underlying. So, a market could be in contango and normal backwardation at the same time, if the spread is + but < the carrying cost.