The premium is the gap between a perp’s mark price and its oracle price, written as a percentage. Positive means the perp trades above its reference. Negative means it trades below, which some call a discount. It is usually a small number, and it carries more than its size suggests.
What a premium is
A positive premium says buyers of the perp are paying more than the reference price to be long. They could wait. They are choosing to pay. A negative premium says sellers are accepting less than the reference to be short. Either way the premium is the immediate cost one side accepts to hold the contract, and it shows up before anything else does.
Premium and funding
Funding is built from the premium. When the perp sits above its reference, funding turns positive and longs pay shorts. When it sits below, shorts pay. So the premium is the cause and funding is the bill that follows. How a perpetual price is formed walks through that loop.
The two are worth reading together. A premium that has just widened while funding still sits at its usual level is fresh pressure. Funding that has been high for days with a premium that is now closing is pressure that has already been paid for.
It means different things at different hours
This is the part specific to stocks. While the stock market is open, the reference is a live share price, and the premium measures the perp against a market that is trading. When the stock market is shut, the share is not trading at all. A gap between mark and oracle in those hours can be perp traders pricing news the reference has not seen yet.
So a weekend premium and a Tuesday-morning premium are different readings. One is a lean against a live market. The other may be the perp moving on while its reference stands still. Always note the hour before reading the figure.
Where it misleads
A premium on a thin book can be one resting order. Check open interest and volume before giving it weight. A premium is also local to its book. The same ticker listed on two books can show two premiums, and the gap between them describes those books and nothing about the stock. It is close kin to basis on a crypto perp, covered in spot and perp basis explained, with the added twist that the spot side sleeps.
And a premium is a level. Without a history you cannot tell a normal premium from an unusual one. NoVo’s collector has recorded the premium on every stock and index perp, every pass, since 4 October 2026.
Where to see it
The Stocks On-Chain tab of the Crypto Market Map shows the premium beside funding and open interest for every stock and index perp, so the three can be read as one picture.