Inside the Oil Market: The 20 Minutes That Broke the U.S. Sector - Bloomberg

Inside the Oil Market: The 20 Minutes That Broke the U.S. Sector - Bloomberg:

It was evident from the very beginning on April 20 that the oil market was headed for trouble.

Frantic sell orders had been pouring in overnight and any traders who connected to the Nymex platform that morning could see a bloodbath was coming. By 7 a.m. in New York, the price on a key futures contract -- West Texas Intermediate for May delivery -- was already down 28% to $13.07 a barrel.

Thousands of miles away, in the Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, a 26-year-old named A’Xiang Chen watched events unfold on her phone in stunned disbelief. A few weeks earlier, she and and her boyfriend had sunk their entire nest egg of about $10,000 into a product that the state-run Bank of China dubbed Yuan You Bao, or Crude Oil Treasure.

As the night wore on, A’Xiang began preparing to lose it all. At 10 p.m. in Shenzhen -- 10 a.m. in New York -- she checked her phone one last time before heading to bed. The price was now $11. Half their savings had been wiped out.