%0 Journal Article %A Lingjie Ma %T Negative WTI Price: What Really Happened and What Can We Learn? %D 2022 %R 10.3905/jod.2021.1.141 %J The Journal of Derivatives %P 9-29 %V 29 %N 3 %X The price of West Texas Intermediate futures contracts fell into the negative on April 20, 2020. In this article, I investigate underlying factors that contributed to the negative price and propose rule changes. I begin with the causes: first, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and an oil price war, an oil oversupply and storage shortage put significant downward pressure on oil prices; second, CME Group made policy changes in early April allowing negative prices; third, heterogeneous trading activities of retail investors and speculators contributed to the negative price on April 20. To improve market efficiency and fairness for market participants, I propose rule changes, such as more advance notice for market rule changes, robust alternatives for settlement price construction, and appropriate limit on trade-at-settlement contracts. %U https://jod.pm-research.com/content/iijderiv/29/3/9.full.pdf