Crude Oil Trading: What Actually Moves WTI and Brent

Oil is the only commodity whose price is partly decided around a conference table. That makes it both the most macro-driven and the most headline-sensitive market a retail trader can touch. Before trading it, you need to know which oil you are trading: WTI, the US benchmark settled at Cushing, Oklahoma, and Brent, the seaborne North Sea benchmark that prices most of the world's physical crude.

The four drivers that matter

Supply arithmetic comes first: OPEC+ production quotas, US shale output and strategic reserve releases set the floor and ceiling for the medium-term trend. Second, inventories — the weekly EIA report is oil's scheduled volatility event, and experienced traders treat it the way FX traders treat payrolls. Third, the dollar: crude is priced in USD, so a strong dollar quietly tightens global oil affordability. Fourth, geopolitics, which can add or remove a five-dollar risk premium overnight.

Read the curve, not just the price

The shape of the futures curve tells you what the spot price cannot. Backwardation — near contracts above later ones — signals tight physical supply and rewards longs. Contango — near contracts below later ones — signals glut and quietly taxes long positions through negative roll yield. Many losing oil trades were right on direction and wrong on the curve.

Sizing for oil's personality

Crude routinely moves 2–3% in a session and can gap violently on weekend headlines. Our bots trade it with roughly half the position size they would use on gold for the same stop distance, stand aside during EIA minutes, and never hold full exposure through OPEC+ meeting windows. In oil, respect for event risk is not caution — it is edge preservation.