5. Spread positions can lose money and are not“arbitrage positions”, especially when the size of these positions is large. Spread positions are usually thought of as less risky than outright positions, since by being long curtain contracts and short other contracts, the position is less exposed to the directional volatility of the natural gas market. It should be stressed that these positions have lower risk, but they do have risk. That is, the returns of these positions do exhibit some volatility, even if this volatility is smaller than outright positions. If a trader leverages these spread positions, the volatility increases linearly with the leverage. Thus, for a
large enough leverage, the spread position can be as risky as or even riskier than an unleveraged outright position. This is because the spread positions are not arbitrage positions, they are just less volatile positions. Thus, when evaluating spread trades, one should consider the amount of leverage and its effect on actual volatility and not naively assume they have lower risk.