Negative price (economy)
The negative price is in the business one by the seller to be paid price for goods or services .
General
In the case of a negative price, the purchase price is not paid by the buyer as usual, but by the seller. The negative price is expressed mathematically with a negative number and is a price indication of . It is an indication of a market that is not in market equilibrium because there are significant excess supply and / or significant gaps in demand . The negative price is then the new equilibrium price , even if supply and demand are not in market equilibrium. If there are enough buyers who are willing to take the excess stock from the sellers in return for a negative price, a positive price could result again. However, this will hardly be the case because buyers cannot consume the goods or cannot store them, which is why there must be gaps in supply due to the reduction in production. The negative interest rate that comes about in the same way is also a negative price.
Legal issues
If the price is negative, there is no lack of a price indication ; negative prices are also prices. Thus the negative award a prize within the meaning of is § 13 para. 1 no. 3 VOB / A . The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) pointed out that when working, in the course of the contractor assets goods obtained (such as in construction work with demolition or Ausbaggerungsgut or recycling of waste paper), there can be negative prices. When calculating the price , the contractor may take into account the fact that he receives assets of value when carrying out work and express this in his calculation by means of negative prices.
Examples
At the Leipzig electricity exchange (EEX), the usual electricity price of 50 euros per MWh was temporarily not demanded from the buyer over Christmas 2009 , but the buyers still received up to 200 euros from the sellers for the purchase . The high point was recorded from October 3rd to 4th, 2009, when the electricity providers had to pay up to 1,500 euros. In fact, there was an oversupply on the electricity market , but it was too expensive for energy supply companies to shut down capacities ( power plants ) and only start them up again when there was new demand. Instead, they preferred to give up excess energy at negative prices at times. Since such constellations only existed for a short time, they had a relatively minor impact on the annual average. In addition, the energy producers usually pass on the additional costs incurred for the negative prices to their own end consumers. Mild weather, more solar power supply and the corona pandemic resulted in overcapacities and a negative electricity price of minus 55 euros / MWh in March 2020 .
The oil price also turned negative during the corona pandemic in April 2020, despite a supply shortage of 20% by OPEC , because traders were willing to pay buyers a price for the purchase of oil. So the quoted crude oil standard West Texas Intermediate (WTI) on the commodity exchange New York Mercantile Exchange shortly with a negative price of 40 US dollars / barrel . The reason for this was the full oil warehouse, so that the negative price reflected the storage costs . The shortage of supply that was undertaken was too small in view of the decline in demand caused by the crisis, so that the oil price continued to fall and finally reached a negative price value. On top of that, however, there was also bad speculation in futures , with buyers who were not interested in physical possession of crude oil paying a price to traders for expiring futures contracts .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court : Order of December 22, 2010, Az .: VII-Verg 33/10 = ZfBR 2011, 204
- ^ BGH, decision of February 1, 2005, Az .: X ZB 27/04 = BGHZ 162, 116
- ^ Corinna Contag, Christian Zanner: Procurement law according to claims. 2014, p. 42 f. ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ Hans.-J. Schmahl: Electricity crazy - expensively given away. In: Märkische Oderzeitung. December 31, 2009, p. 5 ( moz.de ).
- ↑ Jürgen Flauger: Power consumption collapses due to the corona crisis - with drastic consequences for major customers. In: Handelsblatt . April 9, 2020 ( handelsblatt.com ).
- ↑ Gerald Hosp: What do oil prices below zero mean, what are the consequences and will refueling be cheaper? In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . April 21, 2020 ( nzz.ch ).
