Arbitrage opportunity in Aluminium?

Is there a big arbitrage opportunity in Aluminium Feb-March contracts? Or is there is a catch to this?
There is a massive spread of Rs 15 between Aluminium Feb and March contracts. Is there an arbitrage opportunity?
image

Even Alumini contracts are trading at their usual prices near the spot.

image

As per SEBI guidelines, Aluminium contracts from the month of March 2019 and Zinc contracts from the April 2019 will be physically settled. You can find the exchange circular here.

For the cash-settled contracts, we convert the LME Aluminium/Zinc spot price with the RBI Reference rates and arrive at the futures price in INR. But since the settlement type has changed to physical delivery, the cost of delivery increases the price of these contracts(Adding up Customs Duty, CIF, etc). Calculations of the parity/disparity due to physical delivery(Cost of Insurance, Freight, Customs Duty, etc) to arrive at the new spot price is explained in this thread

MCX has also released a separate spot market price for these physically settled contracts. You can find them here.

To answer your question, both the February and March contracts have to be treated separately and you can’t expect the spread to close up.
Also, Alumini contracts will remain to be cash-settled, hence, they will trade around the existing spot price.

2 Likes

Update- Alumini contracts from June expiry onwards are moving to physical delivery. The settlement process for Alumini will be the same as Aluminium(explained above). More details