What is the loss difference between offseting and rollover the contracts?

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Ethan Alberton Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/124561 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. If you are long a futures contract that comes near to expire, you have two options: Offset the position or rollover the contract You have to take delivery of the underlying commodity For example, you are long/buy a crude oil futures contract in March at the spot price of $100 which expires in June. Then the day before they expire, the spot price of the June contract is $70. If you offset the position, you will have to sell the contract which makes you lose $30. If you rollover, you will sell the June contract and buy a July contract. Does it means that you also lose $30 when you rollover? If right, then what differences between these two options since they have the same loss? I'm sorry if this question is stupid to you, I am new in trading so I am confused a lot. Thank you so much for your help in advance!

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: D Stanley Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/124618 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Yes you still lose $30. The only difference between your two scenarios is that in one you are selling and have no position at all and in another you are selling one contract and buying another to keep a position, just in another future month.