Oil

Building on the infrastructure and credit and settlement networks established for food and precious metals, many such markets have proliferated drastically in the late 20th century. Oil was the first form of energy so widely traded, and the fluctuations in the oil markets are of particular political interest.

Some commodity market speculation is directly related to the stability of certain states, e.g. during the Persian Gulf War, speculation on the survival of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Similar political stability concerns have from time to time driven the price of oil.

The oil market is an exception. Most markets are not so tied to the politics of volatile regions - even natural gas tends to be more stable, as it is not traded across oceans by tanker as extensively.