People of a certain age may remember a US TV show called The Beverly Hillbillies. It featured a, shall we say, ‘unsophisticated’ family from the Midwest who moved to California after oil was discovered on their land, making them instant millionaires.
Oil Trading Is Booming
Those of us not fortunate enough to strike ‘black gold’ in our backyard have to resort to more prosaic ways of making money from petroleum. The Financial Times recently reported that platforms including IG and eToro have experienced major increases in oil trading this year.
However, developments over the last few days alone highlight the challenges of trading oil successfully.
David Morrison, Senior Market Analyst at Trade Nation
On Monday, David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, noted that the lack of progress towards a peace deal between the US and Iran has kept upside pressure on oil markets, with tanker traffic through the strategic waterway still largely halted.
Last week, energy was the best-performing sector within the S&P 500, adding 7.3% on the back of a 5.4% rally in WTI crude oil. Fresh Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries also supported oil prices, and there is now the added complication of a new front in the Red Sea, with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis continuing to attack ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Concerns over tightening supply have largely overshadowed last week’s demand-side warnings from OPEC and the International Energy Agency, both of which cut their 2026 global demand forecasts.
Morrison notes that early yesterday (Tuesday), both Brent and WTI crude oil prices rose to their highest levels so far this month as the US-Iran ceasefire, which followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding back in June, expired.
“WTI (the continuous contract) is retesting resistance around $85 per barrel,” he says. “Given everything that is going on, many traders are surprised that prices aren’t back over $100. But there is still this belief that the war will soon end and that slowing global demand growth will once again put downward pressure on prices.”
🛢️ Crude gapped lower this morning, then clawed it all back.
WTI is sitting just above its 50-day EMA.
Brent already made a new swing high in a V-shaped recovery.
Neither move has much to do with barrels changing hands.
Every tick right now is a headline out of the Strait… pic.twitter.com/ZibVrTHIjU
— Jack Prandelli (@jackprandelli) August 18, 2026
Traders Want to Trade Oil, So Brokers Meet the Demand
A wide range of products are available to retail traders looking to exploit this uncertainty, including CFDs, exchange-traded products, ETF options, futures options and oil company shares as well as WTI futures.
CFDs and spread bets are the most accessible option. Brokers market oil CFDs to retail clients – with Brent and WTI the principal benchmarks – enabling traders to express a view such as ‘Brent will rise after an OPEC+ announcement’ or ‘WTI will fall after the US Energy Information Administration inventory numbers’.
Read more: Scope Prime Launches 24/7 Oil CFDs as CME’s Oil Futures Plan Remains on Hold
Oil ETFs/ETPs are one of the biggest retail channels in the US, with products including USO (United States Oil Fund) for WTI exposure; BNO (United States Brent Oil Fund) for Brent exposure; DBO (Invesco DB Oil Fund); USL (United States 12 Month Oil Fund); UCO (ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil); and OILU and other leveraged oil ETPs.
This year’s numbers indicate the sheer scale of retail participation, with Vanda Research data indicating that retail buying across a basket of crude oil ETFs/exchange-traded notes has reached its highest level since May 2020.
There is evidence of particularly speculative retail activity, with traders trading short-dated USO and BNO calls around geopolitical developments. MarketWatch reported that USO’s popularity has increased sharply as retail investors sought an accessible way of trading crude, while BNO appears to have attracted considerably more new money than USO this year.
One dataset puts 2026 year-to-date BNO inflows at approximately $419 million for BNO versus outflows of $20 million for USO as of July 31.
USO options have regularly been trading hundreds of thousands of contracts per day and the broader US options market has been exceptionally strong. Q2 2026 options average daily value reached 72.8 million contracts – up more than 19% year-on-year – with ETF options among the principal drivers and retail participation rebounding.
That makes short-dated calls and puts on oil ETFs an important retail vehicle for expressing a view on oil prices.
Low Entry-Barrier Instruments for Mass Access
Micro WTI futures are one of the most significant product development stories for retail oil trading in 2026. Average daily volume reached 272,000 contracts in May, a 317% year-on-year increase, whereas conventional WTI futures average daily volume was up only 4% over the same period.
CME’s existing Micro WTI futures (MCL) are 100 barrels – compared with 1000 barrels for the standard WTI contract – and it is launching an even smaller 10-barrel WTI contract at the end of this month, making direct exchange-traded oil exposure even more accessible and suggesting that the exchange sees smaller-sized oil futures as a structural retail growth opportunity, rather than merely a temporary response to heightened volatility.
Retail participation in Micro WTI Crude Oil (MCL) futures has driven YTD average daily volume to 271K contracts, with average daily open interest over 38K contracts. A significant portion of MCL volume continues to originate outside the U.S., as geopolitical uncertainty is… pic.twitter.com/7xV239ChcU
— CME Group Active Trader (@CMEActiveTrader) July 23, 2026
CME also offers both monthly and weekly WTI options, which are particularly attractive to active traders because they provide very direct exposure to crude, high liquidity and the ability to go long or short.
At the most speculative end of the market we have leveraged and inverse oil products. Examples include products offering 2x long oil; 3x long oil; 2x/3x inverse oil; or leveraged oil company exposure.
These are designed principally for short-term trading because daily leverage resets can cause returns to diverge substantially from simply multiplying the longer-term oil-price move.
The FCA has highlighted the growing popularity of leveraged and inverse ETPs in the UK. The number of consumers trading complex ETPs increased 23% between July 2024 and July 2025, with 3x products particularly popular.
Retail investors who have a bullish oil view may choose not to trade crude but rather to buy stocks in multinational oil companies, exploration and production companies, oil services companies, energy sector ETFs or exploration and production ETFs.
This is less pure oil exposure because company earnings also depend on production volumes, costs, dividends, management decisions and equity market conditions.
People of a certain age may remember a US TV show called The Beverly Hillbillies. It featured a, shall we say, ‘unsophisticated’ family from the Midwest who moved to California after oil was discovered on their land, making them instant millionaires.
Oil Trading Is Booming
Those of us not fortunate enough to strike ‘black gold’ in our backyard have to resort to more prosaic ways of making money from petroleum. The Financial Times recently reported that platforms including IG and eToro have experienced major increases in oil trading this year.
However, developments over the last few days alone highlight the challenges of trading oil successfully.
David Morrison, Senior Market Analyst at Trade Nation
On Monday, David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, noted that the lack of progress towards a peace deal between the US and Iran has kept upside pressure on oil markets, with tanker traffic through the strategic waterway still largely halted.
Last week, energy was the best-performing sector within the S&P 500, adding 7.3% on the back of a 5.4% rally in WTI crude oil. Fresh Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries also supported oil prices, and there is now the added complication of a new front in the Red Sea, with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis continuing to attack ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Concerns over tightening supply have largely overshadowed last week’s demand-side warnings from OPEC and the International Energy Agency, both of which cut their 2026 global demand forecasts.
Morrison notes that early yesterday (Tuesday), both Brent and WTI crude oil prices rose to their highest levels so far this month as the US-Iran ceasefire, which followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding back in June, expired.
“WTI (the continuous contract) is retesting resistance around $85 per barrel,” he says. “Given everything that is going on, many traders are surprised that prices aren’t back over $100. But there is still this belief that the war will soon end and that slowing global demand growth will once again put downward pressure on prices.”
🛢️ Crude gapped lower this morning, then clawed it all back.
WTI is sitting just above its 50-day EMA.
Brent already made a new swing high in a V-shaped recovery.
Neither move has much to do with barrels changing hands.
Every tick right now is a headline out of the Strait… pic.twitter.com/ZibVrTHIjU
— Jack Prandelli (@jackprandelli) August 18, 2026
Traders Want to Trade Oil, So Brokers Meet the Demand
A wide range of products are available to retail traders looking to exploit this uncertainty, including CFDs, exchange-traded products, ETF options, futures options and oil company shares as well as WTI futures.
CFDs and spread bets are the most accessible option. Brokers market oil CFDs to retail clients – with Brent and WTI the principal benchmarks – enabling traders to express a view such as ‘Brent will rise after an OPEC+ announcement’ or ‘WTI will fall after the US Energy Information Administration inventory numbers’.
Read more: Scope Prime Launches 24/7 Oil CFDs as CME’s Oil Futures Plan Remains on Hold
Oil ETFs/ETPs are one of the biggest retail channels in the US, with products including USO (United States Oil Fund) for WTI exposure; BNO (United States Brent Oil Fund) for Brent exposure; DBO (Invesco DB Oil Fund); USL (United States 12 Month Oil Fund); UCO (ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil); and OILU and other leveraged oil ETPs.
This year’s numbers indicate the sheer scale of retail participation, with Vanda Research data indicating that retail buying across a basket of crude oil ETFs/exchange-traded notes has reached its highest level since May 2020.
There is evidence of particularly speculative retail activity, with traders trading short-dated USO and BNO calls around geopolitical developments. MarketWatch reported that USO’s popularity has increased sharply as retail investors sought an accessible way of trading crude, while BNO appears to have attracted considerably more new money than USO this year.
One dataset puts 2026 year-to-date BNO inflows at approximately $419 million for BNO versus outflows of $20 million for USO as of July 31.
USO options have regularly been trading hundreds of thousands of contracts per day and the broader US options market has been exceptionally strong. Q2 2026 options average daily value reached 72.8 million contracts – up more than 19% year-on-year – with ETF options among the principal drivers and retail participation rebounding.
That makes short-dated calls and puts on oil ETFs an important retail vehicle for expressing a view on oil prices.
Low Entry-Barrier Instruments for Mass Access
Micro WTI futures are one of the most significant product development stories for retail oil trading in 2026. Average daily volume reached 272,000 contracts in May, a 317% year-on-year increase, whereas conventional WTI futures average daily volume was up only 4% over the same period.
CME’s existing Micro WTI futures (MCL) are 100 barrels – compared with 1000 barrels for the standard WTI contract – and it is launching an even smaller 10-barrel WTI contract at the end of this month, making direct exchange-traded oil exposure even more accessible and suggesting that the exchange sees smaller-sized oil futures as a structural retail growth opportunity, rather than merely a temporary response to heightened volatility.
Retail participation in Micro WTI Crude Oil (MCL) futures has driven YTD average daily volume to 271K contracts, with average daily open interest over 38K contracts. A significant portion of MCL volume continues to originate outside the U.S., as geopolitical uncertainty is… pic.twitter.com/7xV239ChcU
— CME Group Active Trader (@CMEActiveTrader) July 23, 2026
CME also offers both monthly and weekly WTI options, which are particularly attractive to active traders because they provide very direct exposure to crude, high liquidity and the ability to go long or short.
At the most speculative end of the market we have leveraged and inverse oil products. Examples include products offering 2x long oil; 3x long oil; 2x/3x inverse oil; or leveraged oil company exposure.
These are designed principally for short-term trading because daily leverage resets can cause returns to diverge substantially from simply multiplying the longer-term oil-price move.
The FCA has highlighted the growing popularity of leveraged and inverse ETPs in the UK. The number of consumers trading complex ETPs increased 23% between July 2024 and July 2025, with 3x products particularly popular.
Retail investors who have a bullish oil view may choose not to trade crude but rather to buy stocks in multinational oil companies, exploration and production companies, oil services companies, energy sector ETFs or exploration and production ETFs.
This is less pure oil exposure because company earnings also depend on production volumes, costs, dividends, management decisions and equity market conditions.
