oil futures actually got negative back then for a few days
It was just for about an hour into the close on one day.
Correct, West Texas Intermediate Crude actually sold at a NEGATIVE price. This means the seller had to PAY someone to take the oil from them.
This was because all of the oil storage facilities in Texas had no available space left for near term delivery. There was ONE London based trading company that had rented space available. They actually got PAID to take delivery of the WTI oil for the front contract the last days of trading.
On our trading floor we have always joked about some commodity going to ZERO. In this particular instance, it went to below zero.