Apart from delivering forex trading services, the eToro trading software also offers integrated commodity trading options such as oil trading. Oil futures trading is in many ways similar to currency trading, but an understanding of the nature of crude oil is essential if you want to successfully invest in this particular commodity. With eToro’s visual trading platform and the following free oil trading manual you too will be able to buy and sell oil in no time, without wasting money and hours of your time on expensive training courses.
A Brief History of Crude Oil Trading
For as long as crude oil has been used as fuel there have been oil trading companies that enabled individual traders to speculate on oil prices. Crude oil is a relatively new commodity, unlike gold, silver or gas, since it is only with the invention of the fuel powered automobile that oil has become a valuable resource and sprouted an international industry around its mining and processing. Today there are thousands of firms and jobs depending on crude oil, despite the growing awareness that our dependence on oil is extremely problematic seeing as it is a non-renewable resource. Most countries in the world depend heavily on oil and yet only a few countries have significant oil resources. This makes crude oil a politically influenced commodity because there are factors outside the economic policy spectrum that can affect its market price. Apart from economic announcements, you must pay attention to major foreign policy decisions when decided which way the oil market is going to turn. A current example of such foreign policy issues to follow would be the American war in Iraq. You can check out the eToro blog for updates on events that affect oil trading.
Technical Basics of Oil Trading
Crude oil is traded in barrels against the USD. Of course thanks to the advent of the internet you don’t actually have to pay cash and then roll your barrel of oil home. Online oil trading has made it possible to buy hundreds of barrels of oil at the click of a button. As with forex trading, our brokers take no commission on oil trading, their only commission being the spread between the buy and sell exchange rates. If you have developed your own technical analysis system or strategies for forex, it will work the same way for crude oil trading, with inevitable adjustments based on price range and the economic and political factors mentioned above. To learn more about oil futures trading, we recommend that you visit the eToro blog and forum websites for in-depth oil market analysis and discussion groups on the subject of oil trading.