AvaTrade Oil

Investing in oil has been a wise choice for many investors throughout the years, especially after the price of a barrel of crude oil skyrockets (like in 2008 when it rose to over $140 a barrel). High prices can be attributed to low oil supplies during that time when many people opted to drive large gas guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks, which translated to less supply, more demand and increased crude oil prices which resulted in ridiculously high gasoline prices. 

The high price of gasoline caused many people to park or sell their gas guzzling vehicles in favor of more fuel efficient cars and trucks.  This trend toward better fuel efficiency gradually created less demand for gasoline which, in turn, decreased demand for crude oil and that caused the price of a barrel of crude to decrease to today’s rate of less than $50 per barrel.

Despite the wild ride many oil investors have experienced over the past few years, crude oil remains one of the most popular investment assets in today’s trading markets. Although environmentalists have insisted for years that oil is a finite resource that is quickly dwindling, others argue that new oil and natural gas reserves are regularly being discovered and that those reserves have risen consistently for several years, which offsets the production decline among OPEC members.

Although experts don’t anticipate crude oil prices to rebound anytime soon, many believe prices will eventually recover, which has created a newfound interest in oil ETFs that provide a derivative means of investing in oil without actually owning oil products or stock in an oil company.

Oil ETFs are available in company shares of stock, futures and derivative contracts that track oil, gas or petroleum-related prices or oil-related indices.