Hi all,
I don’t work with commodities or futures but sometimes I get asked to provide certain data for current oil prices, I am told to use “CO1” in the bloomberg terminal. However in the description it talks about a futures contract. What exactlly is CO1? I am supposed to be getting spot prices of oil.
Thanks,
If anyone has the info on what this “CO1” is reporting I would like to know too. I looked it up on bloomberg markets and the value is not matching up with brent or WTI. In fact, come to think of it, I’m not sure what would be considered “spot”.
What I can tell you, familyguy, is that the values reported on the corner of the CNBC screen and the like are of the current active futures contract. Right now, the current contract for WTI is CLK6 (may) and the current contract for Brent is BZM6 (june). If you google “CLK6 WTI” you will get that value.
Edit: actually this brings up a lot of questions for me. Of course “spot” would be the present price but on my platform the earliest contract is the active one. Where are march and april? Is the spot market a totally different market or is the final price in those months set in stone as the “spot” price for those months? If so… why is “C01” moving by the minute?
Valid points you make, but I would not be the one to answer them as I know very little about this.
I guess we will wait for someone who can answer.
Thanks for taking a look though, much appreciated.
https://www.quandl.com/collections/futures/continuous
This might be usefull. But I am still nowhere near getting the answer so what is the proper Spot price
This is indeed Brent Crude. CO1 on Bloomberg will represent the front month contract, whichever tha may be, which means it will roll continuously and historical prices will always represent front month. Brent trades on ICE Europe.
Just pulled up CNBC, this is the same contract they use to quote Brent on their commodity page.
To answer the original question, use this for “spot” prices. It won’t have basis, but front month futures are nearly always used as a proxy for “spot”.
Thanks for the clear up, Klinko. Is the active month the same as the front month? In other words, the current front month for Brent would be June (according to TOS), yes? I’m confused because CO1 is reporting 39.71 and BZM6 is in the 40s. I also want to add that I’ve noticed, at least on CNBC, there is a lag of when the active month for trading on TOS rolls over and when they roll over which contract they report figures from. It is a few days. Maybe this is what is happening with CO1… did not roll to June yet.
A somewhat safe rule of thumb is yes, the front month is generally the active contract. It will vary depending on commodity class and timing as well. The active month will roll to the next contract ahead of the first notice date, which is when the contract begins to allow for physical deliveries and such. Each commodity has its own specifics and some take into account seasonality (crop cycles), but again, front month and active month are generally ok to use interchangeably. Active, in my opinion, is preferred, but for the OP if they’re using Bloomberg to get historical prices they’ll want to use front month otherwise Bloomberg will spit out historicals for the specific contract that is active, whereas front month they’ll roll it so you can go back decades.
thanks familyguy for bringing this up and thanks klinko for sorting it out. I am significantly more informed today because of you guys.
Thank you all for contributing. Till next time.
