Oil Price forcasting
The Oil futures are exactly that.  They are people forecasting the price of oil at a point of time in the future where they are willing to buy oil at that price. That said, Do you have evidence of a correlation of Price of oil to the shares of oil stocks?  Oil companies that are good investments are generally good investments regardless of the cost of oil.  If you did not know about oil futures then you might be best served by consulting an investment professional for some guidance. "In layman's terms, oil on the commodities market has a ""spot price"" and a ""future price"". The spot price is what the last guy paid to buy a barrel of oil right now (and thus a pretty good indicator of what you'll have to pay). The futures price is what the last guy paid for a ""futures contract"", where they agreed to buy a barrel of oil for $X at some point in the future. Futures contracts are a form of hedging; a futures contract is usually sold at a price somewhere between the current spot price and the true expected future spot price; the buyer saves money versus paying the spot price, while the seller still makes a profit. But, the buyer of a futures contract is basically betting that the spot price as of delivery will be higher, while the seller is betting it will be lower. Futures contracts are available for a wide variety of acceptable future dates, and form a curve when plotted on a graph that will trend in one direction or the other. Now, as Chad said, oil companies basically get their cut no matter what. Oil stocks are generally a good long-term bet. As far as the best short-term time to buy in to an oil stock, look for very short windows when the spot and near-future price of gasoline is trending downward but oil is still on the uptick. During those times, the oil companies are paying their existing (high) contracts for oil, but when the spot price is low it affects futures prices, which will affect the oil companies' margins. Day traders will see that, squawk ""the sky is falling"" and sell off, driving the price down temporarily. That's when you buy in. Pretty much the only other time an oil stock is a guaranteed win is when the entire market takes a swan dive and then bottoms out. Oil has such a built-in demand, for the foreseeable future, that regardless of how bad it gets you WILL make money on an oil stock. So, when the entire market's in a panic and everyone's heading for gold, T-debt etc, buy the major oil stocks across the spectrum. Even if one stock tanks, chances are really good that another company will see that and offer a buyout, jacking the bought company's stock (which you then sell and reinvest the cash into the buying company, which will have taken a hit on the news due to the huge drop in working capital). Of course, the one thing to watch for in the headlines is any news that renewables have become much more attractive than oil. You wait; in the next few decades some enterprising individual will invent a super-efficient solar cell that provides all the power a real, practical car will ever need, and that is simultaneously integrated into wind farms making oil/gas plants passe. When that happens oil will be a thing of the past." If past is prologue, I'd say $20, give or take, inflation adjusted of course. http://www.antagoniste.net/WP-Uploads/2007/01/oil_prices_1861_2006.jpg If supplies are at nightmare oversupply, say, as an absurd unlikely scenario, 82 year high in US oil supplies or an all time record in EIA weekly inventories, it looks like the oil price could be capped at the cost of oil sands:  This one's just plain scary.  Unless if there were some changes refinery laws or technology that I'm not aware of, refineries cutting 50% of the retail gasoline volumes looks bad:
Finance is more local than global. There's a few mega banks but a lot of people still prefer small banks and credit unions.  I would say Oil. OPEC has that shit locked down. They make a ton of money because they're crooks and they fix the prices.  Thanks to electric cars however, their whole industry is going to collapse in a handful of years. And good riddance. Parasites all of them. None of the people getting rich from Oil have spent any time getting their hands dirty retrieving it. They use poor people to dig the shit up and then they re-sell the shit to other poor people while collecting far too much money in transit. Parasites all of them. Agreed, it'll be faster.  Let's do a little math.  Tesla is trying to hit 500k units in 2018.  They want 1m in 2020.  If Tesla can do 1m in 2020, how many EVs can *ALL* other western auto manufacturers build in 2020 (GM + Nissan + VW + Daimler + etc)?  I'd take a swing at 2-3m.  What about Chinese auto manufacturers?  Probably 3m more, since EVs are a focus there?  So if you count that up, it's 7-8m EVs in 2020, which is 10% of worldwide new car sales.  This can all be accomplished in the $35k+ market.  This also provides the volume to drive down battery and electronics costs to hit $30k and then $25k price points later in the 2020's.  So if we're at 10% by 2020, I'd be shocked if we didn't have 50-75% EVs of new car sales by 2030.  20-50% growth over 10 years adds up quickly.  The oil price crash of 2014 was caused by a 2% imbalance between supply and demand.  So this predicts crashes in the price of oil and oil company stocks in the early 2020's.  There's likely also political unrest in oil producing countries, as their economies start having revenue shortfalls.  Given the friendliness of EVs to demand response, I'd think we'd just keep building intermittent renewables.  When the wind blows and sun shines, EVs charge (and turn off otherwise)  This will increase electricity demand, but put pressure on expensive and dirty coal and natural gas.  All of this drives down the cost of electric driving, and CO2 emissions. "You may be missing how countries like Canada may have oil be more of the GDP than countries like the US. In Canada, the lower oil prices may mean more of an economic slowdown with oil companies laying off staff, canceling projects and some companies probably going under as some provinces like Alberta are highly dependent on oil prices to drive most of the economy. In contrast, the US isn't quite as rich in Energy sources and thus may not have the same issues would be my guess. Context matters here. If the rate change helps everybody, doesn't that include the oil producing companies? I'd like to think so using basic logic. What if the main reason for lowering rates was the economic fallout of the decrease in oil prices? Consider that the there would be the question of, ""Why do this now?"" that has to be answered and the only main change is lower oil prices on a macroeconomic level." "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2017/07/18/A-Crude-Shock-Explaining-the-Impact-of-the-2014-16-Oil-Price-Decline-Across-Exporters-44966) reduced by 62%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; The decline in oil prices in 2014-16 was one of the sharpest in history, and put to test the resilience of oil exporters.  &gt; We examine the degree to which economic fundamentals entering the oil price decline explain the impact on economic growth across oil exporting economies, and derive policy implications as to what factors help to mitigate the negative eects.  &gt; Within this group of countries, the impact of the shock is not found to be related to the size of oil exports, or the share of oil in scal revenue or economic activity.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6o5byg/imfa_crude_shock_explaining_the_impact_of_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~170095 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **oil**^#1 **export**^#2 **IMF**^#3 **view**^#4 **economic**^#5" "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-opec-oil-shale-analysis-idUSKBN18M1Q4) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; The history of the relationship between OPEC and the U.S. shale oil industry has evolved a great deal since the cartel discovered it had a surprise rival emerging in a core market for its oil around five years ago.  &gt; WARNING FOR SHALE. By the same token, some U.S. shale leaders may also want a better insight into OPEC thinking and help OPEC understand that shale is not a flash in the pan.  &gt; &amp;quot;OPEC looks at shale and it scoffs,&amp;quot; said Dave Purcell of Tudor, Pickering, Holt &amp; Co, a U.S. shale investment bank that attended the OPEC meeting for the first time.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6el278/opec_continues_to_underestimate_the_invisible_hand/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~133771 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **OPEC**^#1 **shale**^#2 **oil**^#3 **U.S.**^#4 **minister**^#5" "Realize this is almost a year old, but I just wanted to comment on something in Dynas' answer above...  ""Whenever you trade always think about what the other guys is thinking. Sometimes we forget their is someone else on the other side of my trade that thinks essentially the exact opposite of me. Its a zero sum game."" From a market maker's perspective, their primary goal is not necessarily to make money by you being wrong, it is to make money on the bid-offer spread and hedging their book (and potentially interalize). That being said, the market maker would likely be quoting one side of the market away from top of the book if they don't want to take exposure in that direction (i.e. their bid will be lower than the highest bid available or their offer higher than the lowest offer available). This isn't really going to change anything if you're trading on an exchange, but important to consider if you can only see the prices your broker/dealer provides to you and they are your counterparty in the trade." "Sure, and I made it clear in my post that I'm willing to accept that I may be wrong.  But the author does a poor job of arguing his point, his argument in the article is based on an unsubstantiated claim that a certain activity is bad. He says it ""impairs price performance"" but offers no proof that this occurs.  Now granted, I haven't had a chance to look at the data either, but as myself and other posters have mentioned, this claim is quite debatable. I need a bit more material to be convinced." After looking at both S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return (INDEXSP:SPGSCLP) and CS VS 3x LC ETN NYSEARCA: UWTI they seem to track well (using Google Finance).   I'm not seeing where your statement this ETN loses whether oil is gaining or not holds true.   Both have posted a year-over-year loss. In the past year the Crude Oil index has fallen from a high of 494 on October 6, 2014 to a low of 213 as of today October 5th, 2015.  So of course the UWTI will lose as well. Please also notice that that, as stated in the prospectus for UWTI: The ETNs are intended to be daily trading tools for sophisticated   investors to manage daily trading risks. They are designed t o achieve   their stated investment objectives on a daily basis, but their   performance over different periods of time can differ significantly fr   om their stated daily objectives. The ETNs are riskier than securities   that have intermediate or long-term investment objectives, and may not   be sui table for investors who plan to hold them for a period other   than one day. You might want to look into investing in an ETF for long term investment goals and objectives.  Oil ETF List