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 session-by-session basis — but zoom out and the picture is ugly. Crude is staring down its worst monthly and quarterly performance since 2020, and that's a number traders can't ignore.
Flat daily prints can be deceiving. When you're sitting on quarter-over-quarter losses that rival the pandemic-era crash, the lack of a bounce isn't stability — it's exhaustion. Buyers aren't stepping in with conviction, and that tells you something about underlying demand sentiment.
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The 2020 comparison is the key context here. That was the year oil briefly went negative. We're not there, but being in the same conversation for magnitude of losses should put every energy trader on alert. These aren't rounding errors — this is structural pressure showing up in the price.
What drives a quarter this bad? A combination of demand concerns, macro headwinds, and supply dynamics that haven't broken in oil's favor. The market has been pricing in weakness for weeks, and the quarterly close is about to make that pain official and permanent on the charts.
If you're trading energy names or futures, the quarterly close matters for positioning. Fund managers rebalance, trend-followers get fresh signals, and a confirmed ugly quarter can accelerate the next leg. Watch the open interest and any OPEC+ commentary closely as we roll into the next period. Continue reading at Reuters.
