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How We Got to Contango
The send-ups of British manners and the monarchy in the Victorian era by Gilbert and Sullivan may seem quaint and fusty today. But in their penultimate opera, "Utopia, Limited," in 1893, they anticipated at least one mystery of our own time. In one scene a corporate shill is introduced with this: “A Company Promoter this with special education/Which teaches what Contango means and also Backwardation.” Sounds like the stuff of satire. But anyone following oil prices knows that we’re in contango, a somewhat unusual situation in which a futures price for oil -- a promise to buy and sell crude at a certain ... (full story)