Why Crude Oil prices are so Dependent on Geopolitics

Your firm has launched a new Substack blog dedicated to commodities investing uh with insights, strategy breakdowns, and market commentary.

There was a recent insightful post about the dynamics behind what influences crude oil prices.

Can you talk about that or anything else you find interesting on the blog? >> Crude oil is driven uh by global factors.

So, geopolitics plays a part, overall supply demand plays plays a part.

Um over the last 15 years there's been this tension between uh OPEC's actions and and US development.

Uh we've become the number the world's number one uh oil producing nation.

Uh but OPEC still has tremendous power as a cartel.

They have supported prices for the last 5 years by keeping their production capped.

But uh they have recently introduced crude oil back or production uh back into the market.

They're taking off voluntary quotas and cuts and that probably will uh have that's going to put some pressure on prices for a while.

The energy various energy agencies are expecting a glut of crude relative to demand next year.

So if more demand than expected materializes that could be beneficial for crude.

Um geopolitical events if they get worse can be beneficial for crude.

Um on the flip side you have uh just again the global economy crude tends to be a little bit synchronized a little more synchronized than some commodities with the business cycle.

Uh if you have a recession people are buying less and so less is being shipped less is being used for production of of goods and services.

So those are some of the things that drive energy and and just like I said with natural gas you know when it comes to crude oil uh it's a single commodity.

So you have the potential for more volatility than you have with a broad commodity basket.

So, I'd kind of view that as a more tactical tool and view broad commodities as something um that can benefit uh benefit uh investors for diversification.