Historically when high oil and gasoline prices hit Americans ahead of major elections, politicians do everything they can to lower prices.
And earlier this year the Biden administration fired its largest bullet trying to hit that target, by announcing months of releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
But as everyone turns to OPEC to blame for this week’s spike in oil and gasoline prices, we must note a different interesting factor that took place three weeks ago as /cl ramped its bearish price decline.
Note this headline that hit the major financial media websites on September 13th (link is to Bloomberg): Biden Officials Weigh Buying Oil at Around $80 to Refill Reserves
And now let’s look at where oil bottomed recently:
Now I’m loathe to blame any politician for specific movements in trading prices most of the time… But somewhere the Biden Administration officials quoted in those stories (and Homer Simpson) are shouting “DOH!”
In hindsight, perhaps we traders should not have been surprised at the bullish turnaround in oil prices on the small dip beneath $80, and the further bullish follow-through during this week’s OPEC+ meetings.
That being said, we are still in a historically bearish seasonality period through Mid-December, and the daily chart has not violated its current bearish swing high (as of this writing).