What can the past tell us about the possible future direction of oil? Analysts and market watchers have spent much of the past year puzzling over the continued decline in the石油价格但是，一个预测分析启动已经开发出一种工具，它可以说，可以对讨论提供新的洞察力。
多伦多为基础EidoSearchhas built what David Kedmey, its co-founder and president, calls a “pattern search engine” able to comb through the price history of all U.S. securities — across equities, fixed income, commodities and currencies — and identify the hidden connections between what is happening to a given asset today and assets that have traded in a similar direction in the past. The search engine uses these pattern matches — the assets whose historical price “shape” matches those of the source asset — as the basis for a current range of projected outcomes for the asset. EidoSearch’s patented pattern search engine is like “Google for numbers,” Kedmey says; the tool has been more than five years in the making, and the commercial version of the software was released late last year.
将技术应用于过去12个月的西德克萨斯中级原油价格行为 - 并通过WTI史上专门寻找类似模式的匹配 - 产生有趣的结果。华尔街共识，即最近在42美元的桶中交易的石油应该从明年从目前的坍落度按EidoSearch追求的，这在过去的情况下识别了过去的11个时期，其中12-month visual price trend in oil was similar to the past year’s. In eight of the 11 analogues, oil went on to rebound in the following 12 months, with an average increase of 31.8 percent; in three of the 11 analogues, oil continued to sell off, with an average drop in price of 16.8 percent. Matches are ranked by the similarity of their visual fit to what’s happening to the present price trend.
许多长期因素有助于WTI的长期下降：全球供应无线电，部分供应，由国内美国国有美国石油生产的繁荣驱动，并由沙特阿拉伯拒绝削减生产;随着欧洲经济的需求疲弱，仍然陷入衰退，特别是发展中国家的增长China那moderates; and, to a lesser degree, geopolitical tensions and production disruptions through the Middle East and the Russian periphery.
目前的模式与1985年10月至1986年10月的WTI相比，这是一个立即进行的时期，紧随其后的剧烈反弹。与今天一样，全球油嘴在20世纪80年代中期全球势力，但有一个关键差异。Today Saudi Arabia, the leading member of OPEC, is steadfastly refusing to cut production in response to falling prices as it seeks to protect its own position and curtail the growing market share of non-OPEC producers, especially in the U.S. The rationale is that chronically depressed prices will alter the economics of production and force U.S. drillers to shut down or cut back. The Saudis may have other motivations for tolerating low prices for so long — some analysts have pointed, for instance, to a desire on the part of the Saudi royal family to effect regime change in regional rival Iran, with the economic damage brought about by low oil prices a key lever in that effort.
Contrast that with the 1980s. Oil prices had declined from 1982, partly in response to increased supply driven by the growth in non-OPEC producers in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska that had followed the oil crises of the 1970s. To stem the decline, Saudi Arabia attempted to introduce a quota system among OPEC member states that would allow for price stabilization and the maintenance of fixed market shares; part of this involved a gradual cut in production across the board. Initially, other members of OPEC flouted this new system and refused to introduce cuts in line with Saudi Arabia’s demands; as a result, from July 1983 to July 1984, another pattern match with the price trend today, oil declined.
它继续这样做在接下来的12个月as OPEC solidarity frayed further. At the end of 1985, with WTI around $25, the Saudis abandoned their role as the “swing producer” in global oil markets and drastically increased production.
The Saudis’ move was calculated and designed to force a price collapse. The bet behind this highly risky strategy was that OPEC’s rogue members would be so hurt by the price decline that they would be compelled to agree to the rigid quota system the Saudis had originally proposed. The bet paid off: WTI collapsed to $10 (March 1986), a new compact was reached among OPEC member states, production was cut, and prices began to rise again. At the same time, U.S. domestic production, which had increased through the early 1980s, began to decline from early 1986, and global growth remained supportive of widespread demand for oil. The rebound seen in the 12 months following October 1986 has to be seen within the context of renewed supply discipline and tightness in the wake of the 1986 price collapse engineered by Saudi Arabia. Similarly, the continued sell-off in the period following July 1984 was a result of poor structural discipline in OPEC and increasing supply from non-OPEC producers.
今天的油价环境是更像1984年7月，之后继续抛售，还是1986年10月，随后出现反弹？如今，沙特对欧佩克拥有比80年代中期更大的权力，而欧佩克本身就是一个纪律更严明的卡特尔，他们目前对减产的抵制几乎没有减弱的迹象。1986年，沙特增加了产量，以此迫使通过一项总协定进行减产；如今，他们拒绝减产的可能性很低，至少目前是这样，尽管2015年美国的石油产量预计将达到平均每天940万桶的45年高点。再加上对伊朗石油出口的限制可能在明年初结束，因此有理由怀疑，未来12个月，全球石油供应仍将保持旺盛，这与1986年10月之后的时期形成鲜明对比。与1984年的区别更为微妙；如果石油抛售在未来12个月内继续，其原因将与推动1984年7月后石油价格下跌的原因不同。
2009年7月在2009年7月之后的一年中恢复了较高的12个月追踪期，这是今天的价格趋势模式的另一个12个月的追踪期，但这是在宣布打击全球金融危机的暂时的非凡财政和货币政策措施。
These announcements fed the market’s expectation of a rapid global recovery; today, by contrast, growth expectations are more muted, and the policy bullets at the disposal of the world’s governments and central banks are far fewer in number. The国际货币基金组织预计2015年全球GDP增长率将提高到2015年的3.5％，而2016年的3.8％，从去年的3.4％，其中大部分接地集中在先进经济体中。这应该为油价提供一些支持，但并非与2008年-09中看到的类似规模。
经济复苏也是1991年9月和1998年9月的集会的一个因素。
Late 1998 was the flickering end of the Asian financial crisis; in 1991 markets were recovering from the first Iraq war, and the U.S. economy had begun to rebound from a recession produced, in turn, by the Federal Reserve’s post–savings and loans crisis rate tightening and the Gulf War–led oil price shock. These periods may have influenced oil to trade in similar directions to what we see today, but the underlying dynamics were very different.
The factors driving the price of oil have remained constant over the past few decades: growth and growth expectations, OPEC politics, geopolitical conflict, supply and spare-capacity levels. But the particular arrangement of these factors today remains novel, with the Saudis refusing to cut production; U.S. oil production increasing, albeit at a slowing rate; the Iranian nuclear agreement promising an influx of oil into an already oversupplied market; and demand likely to hold steady amid a moderately improved global growth outlook. Technology such as the EidoSearch pattern search engine offers meat to support the consensus expectation of a rally in oil over the next 12 months, while giving us just enough hooks to suggest that this time, things might really be different.