Contango

Contango, or contango theory, concerns scenarios in which the price of a futures contract is higher than the expected spot price on the day of the contract's delivery.

An example of contango theory: If an investor purchases a futures contract for gold to be delivered in six months with a contract price of $20 per unit, but the expected spot price of gold in six months is $18 per unit, then the investor is paying a premium of $2 per unit of gold in their futures contract. As a result, the gold market may experience contango—but a commodity market cannot be declared “in contango” until after a commodity’s spot price can be compared to the futures contract price on the day of delivery.

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