Seasonal effects on crude oil: 20 percent profit in 4 weeks.

Last Updated: 1. März 2024By

The experiment with crude oil is over. Successful even. And that was just the first part! The second part will follow next week, as from then on the signs for WTI are reversed.

On February 9th, seasonality promised us that crude oil would rise in most cases until the beginning of March. This has been shown by the numbers of the last 10 years. On February 9th, I bought a leveraged certificate on rising oil prices – with a small leverage. Here you can see the result today before the sale.

(Source: my portfolio) With an investment of 280 euros just under 4 weeks ago, a profit of 19.20 percent or 53 euros has now been made. WTI itself has risen by just under 4 percent in the same period. This is almost exactly the median of the last 33 years. But now we turn the tables. Well, not really us, but the seasonality.

When will WTI become cheaper again? From March 5th, prices will fall by an average of 12.5 percent when we settle on March 18th. Similar values ​​are also obtained if we extend the period until April 27th. This is a similar typical low point.

However, both times the year 2020 distorts the data. Due to the pandemic, crude oil fell by almost 55 percent in the period until March 18th. Ideally, we should exclude the 1st corona year. This gives us the following results:

The low point shifts to March 15th and the average loss drops to 7 percent. In the median, it drops to only 4.37 percent. That already sounds more realistic.

Let’s take a look at the 33 years of data available (excluding 2020), oil falls between the 7th and 15th in 72.7 percent of cases, but only by 2 percent.

Election years also confirm falling prices After the US just recently held the race between the fossils, as a US comedian has referred to the presidential elections, I also looked at this special case.

Here, too, we must exclude the year 2020 consistently. Looking at the last election years from 2000, prices also fall from March 7th. The low point is here on April 4th. The median decline in this time window is 4.86 percent. The graphic shows how the individual election years have developed.

(Source: Seasonax.com) Although many data indicate that WTI prices could now fall again, it is only a drop in the bucket. If prices follow seasonality, a long trade from early April is much more worthwhile. Because from early April to August 21st, crude oil rose by 17.77 percent in the last election years – even if we include the year 2020.