The global oil market has entered a new era, one where fundamentals play second fiddle to politics, perception, and power plays. The volatility we’ve seen in recent weeks is not driven by shifts in supply and demand, but by a single man’s social media posts and a world economy hanging on every word. When a U.S. president can send Brent tumbling $3 on a Friday tweet and reverse it by Sunday night, we are no longer in a rational market, we’re in a theatre of manipulation.
The old models built on barrels counted and demand charts plotted no longer hold. Traders can no longer rely on market structure or data to position themselves. “Counting is not analysis, ” as I’ve said before. The Energy Information Agency predicting $59 Brent in Q4 and $50 by early 2026 is a case in point, if prompt prices are already near $59, that implies forward prices near $30, which makes no sense. Markets don’t move in neat arithmetic; they move on fear, momentum, and headlines.
What we are really witnessing is the weaponization of uncertainty. Traders today are not managing exposure to fundamentals, but to the whims of political rhetoric, particularly from Washington. Tariff threats, trade spats, and sanction sabre-rattling are driving the short-term price swings that keep investors off balance. The outcome is a market dominated by risk-aversion, where few are willing to take positions. Massive price candles up and down now replace gradual shifts based on real consumption trends. Everyone’s instinct is to sell first, think later, whether they’re trading oil, equities, or even potatoes.
Yet despite the noise, I believe prices will ultimately head higher into year-end. The U.S. needs markets to rally. Interest rates are set to fall, liquidity will return, and that will feed into a risk-on environment, bullish for crude. The current volatility is the turbulence before take-off. Cuts in rates are now almost certain, and when they come, oil will rise with equities and the broader economy.
In the long game, geopolitics remains the compass. The U.S. and China may spar, but they must coexist, their economies are too intertwined to decouple. The real structural shift ahead will be driven not by counting barrels, but by recognizing that in this new age, macro forces and political theatre determine direction. Fundamentals may still whisper, but politics now roars.