Take a look at a 12-month price chart of Gasoline versus Crude Oil courtesy of gasbuddy.com:
Crude bottomed out at $32 back in late December and is now up almost 75% from the bottom now at $56 a barrell. Gasoline bottomed out at $1.60 at about the same time and has since move up only about 43% to a $2.30. So it looks like crude prices exceed gasoline prices on both the way up and the way down.
I've been playing the USO ETF which is up only about 39% off the bottom or roughly have of crude oil. So it appears the USO has been significantly underperforming crude itself.
Using the magic of stockfinder, I did a comparison between USO and a bunch of other energy ETF's which is shown on the left. Turns out that most energy ETF's underperformed USO except for DTO (double short oil ETF) and OIH, the Oil Service Holders.
The best performer versus USO was DTO, the double short ETF and the worst performer versus USO was the DXO, double long ETF! How ironic is that?
Key takeaways from this comparison: OIH is a better way to play energy an energy bull market than USO. Stay away from all the other energy ETF's and stick with OIH on the long side. The dividend paying power of the underlying stocks is no doubt a contributor to the outperformance.
On the short side, DTO looks like a great way to play an energy bear market. Seasonally. expect to see a top in energy prices at the end of July, and that would be the time to switch from OIH back to DTO.
Also better to fill up the gas tank (and Heating Oil if you need that) now because we are looking at higher prices for the next 2 months anyway.