Investors Scoop Up $90 Oil Bets as Saudi-Iran Tensions Escalate
- Signs of rebalancing had already boosted Brent $70, $80 calls
- Middle East conflict could upend current oil price forecasts
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Oil options traders are making increasingly bullish bets on how high crude can go, and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are fueling their optimism.
The equivalent of 10 million barrels of Brent crude options -- which would profit most if the global benchmark rises above $90 a barrel by mid-2019, but not above $100 -- traded on Monday and Tuesday combined, according to Bloomberg calculations from ICE Futures Europe data. That follows a series of trades in recent sessions that would be profitable if prices were to rise above $70 and $80 by Christmas.