shirt to hurt the furn, page-58

mike sa,
Purely conjecture, but it could have something to do with (1) demand: there are a lot of contracts to roll over from March, so sellers could be extracting a premium which would be usual (2) could be an expression of a view as to the likely outcome of the position in 3 months (3) similarly could be an expression of the risk in selling a contract atm. In other words, the market might be essentially bullish, so only preparedto sell contracts (go short) at a premium to lower the risk to sellers. (4) might have something to do with fair value calculations, which use time to expiry, dividents to be paid and other factors in the equation. (5) could be simple old manipulation. I dunno really but these are the things that occur to me. As to whether it will last, I dunno that either. Voltaire, do you know?