Oil Traders Set to Ride on COVID-19 Vaccine Wave of Economic Recovery Into 2021.

Crude oil traders won’t in a hurry forget how eventful the black liquid traded this year amid an era of COVID-19 pandemic that at one time of the year saw a shock maiden feature into negative territory for West Texas Intermediate futures in April, as energy demand plunged.

At Today’s trading session, Brent crude futures were trading around $51.44 per barrel, losing about 0.25% in face value, and also the U.S based oil contract West Texas Intermediate futures were down 0.35% to trade at $48.22 per barrel.

Oil bears dominated the headlines in the early part of 2020 with the aid of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted global financial markets negatively, reduced human mobility at levels not seen since the Second World War, and most important wiped out 20% of the global crude oil markets’ value in 2020.

That said, unprecedented quantitative easing enacted by global central banks supported oil prices in jump-starting from these low levels, with both major oil benchmarks Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate futures gaining more than 100% from their 10 year-lows seen in Q1 2020.

Presently oil prices have fared relatively well in Q4 2020, as energy demand in the world’s largest economy seems to have improved significantly, as recent data retrieved from the U.S Department of Energy reported a massive draw in oil stockpiles of -6.065 million barrels and beating even the American Petroleum Institute estimate of 4.785 million barrel drop, aided oil the bias that Brent crude futures prices would end the year 2020 at least above $50 per barrel.

Still, Oil bulls are aware of the prevailing market conditions in play most especially on COVID-19 macros, taking to account the current level of COVID-19 restrictions currently in play at emerged and emerging market could pose a threat to a continuous bullish rally in 2020, yet oil traders look set to ride on the COVID-19 vaccine wave of economic optimism into 2021.