General Discussion

1) The SPR is near 40 year lows.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcsstus1&f=a

See the link above.

2) Trump decides to start a major war in the Middle East which will significantly disrupt oil supplies.

3) Trump has been threatening this for months, and even attacked Iran for a few days back in July.

4) Why didn't Trump start building up the SPR last year given that the price of oil was near multi-decade lows, and he knew he was going to start a war in the Persian Gulf?

5) This next part is supposition, obviously, but could the reason have been that Trump and MAGA leadership were front running their own attack of Iran and buying oil futures themselves? If Trump was going to start a war in the Middle East, re-building the SPR would have been the logical and prudent step to take. Why didn't they do it? Either they were grossly incompetent or trading on inside information for themselves.

I believe that there were significant buyers in the oil market leading up to the strikes on Iran. I can't prove it, but I believe that the price of oil should have been even lower than it was, but there were insiders that were trading ahead of the strike.

There have been rumors that some connected investors, including the President himself, have been front running good and bad news from the Trump Administration since his first administration. I and others have posted about this on this site. There has never been another President that has made as many sudden, unexpected announcements that create significant White House-driven volatility across financial and commodity markets.

Investors do not need proof to some legal standard to reach a conclusion that a market is dishonest or unfair. Bad coincidences are proof enough, and investors will start leaving a market that they believe is dishonest and invest in one they think is better regulated and fairer. That is how markets work, and that is how the U.S. became the destination of capital from all around the world. The world thought we were fairer and better regulated. It does not need to be this way, and investors will find another market to invest if our Administration keeps manipulating financial and commodity markets.