After six months of war in Iran and a long series of mixed signals about when the conflict would end, the oil market appears to be shrugging off some of its usual price movement factors. At the same time, with the U.S. Petroleum Reserve at its lowest level in decades and a shortage in refinery capacity, there are plenty of reasons investors might expect oil and gas prices to stay high for the foreseeable future, even as the Trump administration will likely try to pull them back down in the lead-up to November's midterm elections.
The oil and gas industry is far from a monolith, though, and just because crude or gasoline prices are high does not mean that any investment in the space is equal. Refineries have seen major boosts, for example, as crack spreads have reached record levels. To gain the widest possible access to the industry, investors may turn to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), but even then, there are plenty of options to choose from, with a variety of approaches.
