by Calculated Risk on 5/24/2019 05:24:00 PM

From MarketWatch: Oil futures suffer worst weekly performance of the year

Oil futures settled higher Friday, recouping a portion of recent losses, but a day after posting their biggest one-day loss since December, prices saw their worst weekly performance of the year.
…
Brent shed 4.6%, while WTI was down by 5.7%, on Thursday — the biggest daily losses since December. The week’s losses for both were also the largest year to date.

Click on graph for larger image

The first graph shows WTI and Brent spot oil prices from the EIA. (Prices today added).

According to Bloomberg, WTI is at $59.02 per barrel today, and Brent is at $69.27.

Prices collapsed in 2008 due to the financial crisis, and then increased as the economy recovered.   Oil prices collapsed again in 2014 and 2015, mostly due to oversupply.

The second graph shows the year-over-year change in WTI based on data from the EIA.

Six times since 1987, oil prices have increased 100% or more YoY.  And several times prices have almost fallen in half YoY.

Currently WTI is down 18% year-over-year, but up sharply from the lows at the of 2018.

Oil prices are volatile!