Oil fell on Monday as traders sold the extra price paid for war risk and Wall Street rallied. The USO fund, a US-listed product that tracks WTI, the American crude benchmark, lost 3.87% and closed at US$142.66.
The Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane at the centre of the Iran conflict, still shapes how much war risk traders price in.
For Latin America the pain is uneven. Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil giant, has fallen for six sessions in a row and sits 29.9% below its 23 October high.
What matters today. Oil is trading on headlines about Iran rather than on barrels, so one calm day or one new attack can swing prices and Latin American oil shares sharply.
01 The session in one read
Monday’s story was a tug of war between supply fear and calmer nerves. Wall Street surged and fear fell, which is the moment traders tend to sell the extra price they paid for war risk.
The WTI-tracking USO fund lost 3.87% by the close.
Oil still sits 115.6% above its December 2025 low, so the market keeps a large war premium, the extra price buyers pay for fear of lost supply. Monday showed that premium shrinking when nerves calm, while any new attack on shipping near Hormuz could bring it back at once; the variable to watch is whether tensions around Iran stay quiet.
Oil — the daily wrap.02 The board
Petrobras slipped 0.97% to US$18.35 while Ecopetrol rose 0.39% to US$15.61, a rare split between two state-linked producers. YPF, Argentina’s flagship, fell 1.47% to US$38.09.
These are New York share prices of companies, not the price of a barrel, so they also carry company and country risks.
Source: RT close, 2026-11-09. Where a commodity has no spot feed, an exchange-traded tracker or leading producer is shown as a labelled proxy.
Latin America — Cross-Market Board
03 Why it moved
First and heaviest, falling fear: with shares surging and the VIX down 22.31%, traders sold the war premium. Confidence is medium, because we have no single confirmed trigger for the move.
Second, a softer dollar and a stock-market rally made holding oil as a hedge less attractive. Confidence is medium.
The usual drivers were mixed. The dollar index eased 0.61% to 101.68 and the S&P 500 jumped 2.35% to 7,550, while the VIX fear gauge dropped 22.31% to 19.92, all of which show calmer nerves.
The 10-year US Treasury yield rose 3 basis points to 4.89% and gold’s fund gained 1.88% to 379.53, so the picture was not one of simple risk-on buying. Our best reading is that falling fear, not weaker demand, pulled oil lower.
04 The trend behind it
Oil is cooling from a spike. The fund is 9.06% lower over five sessions and 5.54% lower over 20, yet still up 12.7% over 60 sessions.
This looks like a pullback inside a high-price phase, not a new bear market. Monday’s fall extends a slide that has now lasted five sessions.
Our own history since 2007 adds context. After 106 earlier cases with a 20-session fall this size, the fund was higher 20 sessions later in 56 of them (53%), with a median of +0.4% and a worst case of -54.6%; history is not a forecast.
Petrobras tells a darker story: down 27.81% in 20 sessions and 13.28% in five. Of 17 earlier falls that large it rebounded in 8 (47%), with a median of -6.4% and a worst case of -45.2%.
05 What it means for Latin America
Brazil feels it most through Petrobras, whose shares are 59.0% above their January low but far below October’s peak. Its pre-salt fields, deep offshore deposits beneath a layer of salt, pay well only when crude stays high.
Argentina’s YPF, which leans on the Vaca Muerta shale basin, gave up 1.47% in a day. Colombia’s Ecopetrol, whose shares are 14.5% below their 15 September high, held up better.
Importers such as Chile and Peru gain from cheaper crude, while budgets built on high prices in Mexico, with its state firm Pemex, and in Venezuela and Guyana lose some cushion.
06 The names to watch
Petrobras is the stock to watch. Six straight losses mean sellers are in charge, and traders will look for a stable close above US$18.
YPF and Ecopetrol show how local factors matter: Ecopetrol rose while its peers fell. Guyana’s offshore boom and Venezuela’s output are worth watching, since a sanctions-bound barrel returning would add supply.
07 What would end it
The fall ends if tensions around Iran flare again, because the war premium would rebuild quickly. It continues if the calm holds and shipping near Hormuz stays safe.
On the chart, the fund’s nearest resistance is the 169.53 high from 23 October, and the round 150 level sits below it. Support is the 140 round number, and then the 12-month low of 66.17 from 16 December 2025.
For Petrobras, the 26.16 October high is far overhead, so round-number support near US$18 matters first. There is no scheduled date that settles this, so the next headline from Iran or Hormuz is the event.
08 What to watch
What Prediction Markets Say
Polymarket, where users bet real money, lists a market on where WTI, the US crude benchmark, will trade in November, with US$1,909,504 traded as of 8:21 p.m. ET, 9 November 2026. It prices a touch of US$90 at 70.5%, US$95 at 37.5% and US$100 at 27.5%, and a fall to US$85 at 87.0%, US$80 at 58.5% and US$75 at 28.0%.
These prices are bets, not polls. They show traders still expect wide swings after Monday’s fall.
Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did oil fall on Monday?
Calmer nerves and a stock-market rally led traders to sell the extra price paid for war risk. The USO fund, tracking WTI, lost 3.87%.
Does USO show the price of a barrel?
No. It is a US-listed fund that tracks WTI crude, so its US$142.66 close is the fund’s price and not the barrel’s.
Why is Petrobras falling faster than oil?
It is down 27.81% in 20 sessions while the oil fund is down 5.54%, so more than crude is involved; we think profit-taking after October’s peak is the likeliest reason, with low confidence.
Does falling oil help Latin America?
Importers such as Chile and Peru benefit, while producers such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Guyana and Venezuela see profits and budgets pressured.