Oil Heads for Worst Quarter Since 2020 Despite Flat Session
Crude is on track for its steepest monthly and quarterly losses in five years, even as daily prices barely moved.
Oil prices are going nowhere fast on a daily basis — but zoom out and the picture is brutal. Crude is staring down its worst monthly and quarterly performance since 2020, a year that saw demand collapse when the world locked down. That's the kind of comparison that should make every energy trader sit up straight.
The flat session is almost beside the point. What matters is the cumulative damage piling up over weeks and months. When a commodity logs losses this deep over a full quarter, it signals something structural, not just noise. Weak demand expectations, rising supply fears, and macro headwinds have been chipping away at the bull case all quarter long.
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For traders, this is a critical inflection zone. The 2020 comparison is your anchor. Back then, the crash was demand destruction on a historic scale. If today's losses are approaching that territory without a pandemic as the excuse, that tells you the market is genuinely worried about where global growth is headed — and OPEC+ supply decisions aren't plugging the gap.
Position accordingly. A quarter this bad doesn't reverse overnight. Momentum traders will be looking for confirmation of a bottom before loading up on the long side, while bears may keep pressing until a catalyst forces a short squeeze. Watch end-of-quarter flows closely — they can distort the picture before the real trend reasserts itself next week.
Continue reading at Reuters.
