Tom Therramus

All was calm when I predicted in February 2018 at oil-price.net that mid-June 2018″ would see an upsurge in oil price volatility. Four months later, on June 26 2018, a volatility spike in West Texas Intermediate crude oil spot price marked the beginning of the turbulent phase in the oil markets that we are now experiencing.

A consistent theme in my articles is the charts reveal that economic disruptions, such as ructions in the stock market, tend to follow periods of marked instability in the price of oil, and further, that the economy at large appears to be acutely sensitive to sudden changes in the cost of energy – as mirrored by the longest lines on the chart above.

Given the economic disruptions that nearly always happen in the aftermath of oil shocks, it seems important to understand what is behind the timing of transient instabilities in the oil markets.

This essay brings a different perspective to the question of whether oil caused the financial crash of 2008.

A cause for the financial crisis of 2008 is described that differs from conventional wisdom. It is proposed that in the early 2000s, an increase in the volatility of oil took place…The oil shock of 2008, when price doubled over less than a year (peaking at ~ $140 a barrel), is shown not to be an isolated event. Instead, the oil shock of 2008 is the largest in a series of 7 prominent spikes in oil price variance that began some 7-8 years ago.