Commodity seasonality · Energy

Crude Oil Seasonality: When Does USO Historically Perform Best?

Crude oil demand, refinery maintenance, driving season and inventory cycles recur through the year. This page uses USO as a tradable proxy and calculates its seasonal behavior live.

Live dataUpdated automaticallyTicker: USO

Live USO seasonal pattern

The chart shows the normalized average calendar-year path across the selected history.

USO annual seasonality

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Strongest 60-day window
Average return in window
Winning years
Weakest 60-day window

Why crude oil can be seasonal

Refinery maintenance

Seasonal refinery turnarounds can temporarily change crude demand and product balances.

Driving season

Gasoline demand often rises into the northern-hemisphere summer travel period.

Inventory cycle

Recurring inventory builds and draws can affect how the market prices near-term supply.

Winter demand

Heating demand and weather can change the seasonal balance across crude and refined products.

Strongest and weakest recurring windows

Historically strongest

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Historically weakest

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Analyze USO yourself.

Open the dashboard to inspect yearly returns and test any selected range.

Open USO in Stock Seasonality →