SPYEQUITY
—NO QUOTE
Equities
Futures
% r
% q

Inter-Commodity Spread Calculator

How this strategy works →
AssistantPRO
Type a trade in plain English. A fine-tuned model returns the symbol, structure, expiry and size — never a strike or a price.
RECORDED EXAMPLE1/3
“bull call spread on NVDA, 30 days, 2 contracts”
NVDAEQUITYBull Call Spread30d2×
Not a live answer. Captured from api.optionsandfuturescalculator.com on 2026-08-11 and replayed here — the assistant did not run just now. Type your own above and press Parse for a real one.
Trained on ES and NQ futures only — commodity roots are refused, not guessed.A bare futures directive (“Long NQ, 45 days”) often returns no parameters.Exercise style and averaging come from a keyword scan of your words.
Strategy47
Single-leg calls and puts are free
Spreads, straddles, condors, butterflies and futures spreads need Pro. 7 days free, then $9.99/month or $99/year.
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Ticket
Averaging
Debit · 1 × 100—
Position · 0 legs
No legsSelect strikes from the option chain to build a position.
Exercise & Averaging
Exercise
Dividend yield is not modelled on this tree (drift is r − σ²/2). The strategy panel prices with a dividend yield; this panel does not.
Averaging
No resultPick a strike with a live quote to price the tree.
Saved
Nothing saved yetBuild a position, name it, and it will be here next time.
Probability Distribution
No distribution yetThe curve needs a live spot, an implied volatility off the option chain, and a real expiry. Add priced legs to draw it.
P&L matrixprice × date
price–
No grid yetAdd priced legs to compute P&L across price and date.
P&L surfaceprice × date × profit
Surface offTurn on 3D to see the position as a height field.
Option Chain
Outcome
No resultRun a calculation to see outcome, probability and Greeks.

Long one product and short a different but economically tied one — crude against refined products, soybeans against meal and oil, grain against livestock. The differential normally stands for a processing or substitution margin somebody in the physical market genuinely earns, and that is what separates it from a statistical pairs trade with a pretty chart. It breaks when the physical link breaks: an outage, a change in yields, a shift in ratios moves the spread for reasons no price history saw coming. Set the leg ratios here and read the differential in the units a processor would use, not as the difference of two screen prices.

The full Futures Inter-Commodity Spread guide, worked example and FAQs →

Three separate futures legs at a fixed ratio, usually available as a single 'crack spread' order on exchanges that list the combination directly — check whether the venue offers the ratio as one ticket before legging in manually, since the ratio itself is the entire point of the trade. Contract sizes differ across the three products, which is exactly why a ratio like 3:2:1 exists rather than a simple 1:1:1; using the wrong contract counts turns this into an unintended outright position in whichever product is over- or under-weighted.

Sizing and account notes

Getting the contract ratio right is the whole trade — a 3:2:1 crack spread entered as 1:1:1 is not a smaller version of the same position, it is a different and unintended outright bet weighted toward whichever leg is under-hedged relative to its true ratio. Margin is set on the combination where the exchange recognizes it as a defined spread; legging in the three contracts separately at full outright margin on each defeats the purpose of trading the relationship rather than the individual legs. Seasonal patterns in the ratio are well known and already reflected in the price by the time they appear in a seasonal chart.

Common mistake. The common mistake is entering the three legs at a round 1:1:1 ratio for simplicity, which is not a smaller version of the crack spread but a different, unhedged outright position.

At a glance

Legs
3
Market view
Relative value — processing margin
Opened for
Margin
What bounds the profit
Bounded by the processing margin's own ceiling
What bounds the loss
Bounded by the margin turning negative

The order ticket, from the worked example

#ActionInstrumentStrike
1Buy ×3Crude oil future—
2Sell ×2Gasoline future—
3Sell ×1Heating oil future—

Leg ratio

RoleInstrumentPosition
InputCrude oil3 contracts, long
OutputGasoline2 contracts, short
OutputHeating oil1 contract, short

How this compares with related strategies

StrategyMarket viewOpened forLegs vs. this one
Futures SpreadRelative value — non-directionalMargin-1
Futures Calendar SpreadTerm structure — non-directionalMargin-1
Futures OutrightDirectional — leveraged, linearMargin-2
Futures Basis TradeArbitrage — carry captureMargin-1