Crude Oil Prices

Smart investing is all about finding a good deal and earning money on your investment. To be a sound investor, it’s important to do a lot of research before spending your money and to fully understand the details of the potential opportunity.  

Part of the research process is learning and understanding many different terms and what they mean. The NYMEX and NYMEX crude oil price is one of those terms you should know.  

What Is The NYMEX Crude Oil Price? 

Before we jump into information on the crude oil price, let’s take a moment to review what NYMEX is.  

NYMEX stands for New York Mercantile Exchange and is a commodity futures exchange. NYMEX is owned by CME Group of Chicago. The commodities traded on NYMEX include energy and metals.  

Until 2016, NYMEX maintained a physical trading floor, where brokers shouted trades and made complicated hand gestures in order to communicate with others. Today, all trades are done electronically.  

Now, let’s dive into the NYMEX crude oil price. Traditionally, oil prices have been controlled through government agreements such as OPEC and large oil companies.  

When NYMEX launched the oil futures contracts, pricing became more transparent and open to the public. 

NYMEX Crude Oil Futures 

It’s important to understand that the NYMEX crude oil price refers to commodity futures, which are very different than buying stock. 

Buying commodity futures means that you’re buying barrels of crude oil that will be delivered in the future. This future delivery date can be up to nine years in the future.  

So, what’s the benefit? 

The benefit is that you can agree to a contract and price today, lock-in that cost, and then deliver the physical product later, when the cost might be higher. When the seller gives the crude oil to the buyer, the ownership title transfers with the physical product. 

Crude oil futures allow sellers to sell for a good price and buyers to secure plenty of product for the future, so they know they won’t have a future shortage of the product. 

Should I Invest In Crude Oil? 

The NYMEX crude oil price is all you need to know and understand to decide whether or not it’s the right time to invest in crude oil futures.  

Read our other articles analyzing the current NYMEX crude oil price to help you to decide if today is the right time to invest or not. 

If you’re interested in the NYMEX crude oil price and investing in oil in general, you’d likely be interested in learning more about oil prices. There are many different ways to invest in oil.  

You can invest in NYMEX crude oil or even buy stocks in successful oil companies that are publicly traded. Oil prices can fluctuate over time, but investing in oil can also be very lucrative at times.