Trading
Monday, June 29th 2026
Crude Oil: The Options Re-Armed for Another Spike
USO Calls Are Carrying Strait Risk
Summary
Crude oil options are showing a strong call skew, indicating market expectations of a potential supply shock despite lower spot prices, with USO’s 30‑day implied volatility at 43% matching realized levels; the skew has re‑steepened after a brief flattening during a peace deal, reflecting ongoing geopolitical tension around the Strait of Hormuz, while energy equities remain flat‑to‑put‑skewed, suggesting the upside bet is confined to crude itself.
June 9, 2026
By Tyler Cheves
Crude oil made fresh lows Friday, but its options just re-loaded for a spike. Brent settled near $72 a barrel, down about 10% on the week to its lowest since late February, as tankers moved through the Strait of Hormuz again and Gulf supply came back online. The tape is trading the glut. The options on USO, the liquid crude proxy, are not: the 25-delta call now trades 3.7 vol points richer than the 25-delta put, while 30-day implied vol sits at 43%, the 60th percentile of its year.
A call that costs more than the equidistant put is unusual. In stocks the put is dearer, because the tail risk is a crash, and USO normally trades the same way. So when its call wing bids up, the market is paying for a move higher, and in crude that means one thing: a supply shock.
The skew is tracking the strait, not the price
USO's fitted skew (ORATS's slope field, /datav2/hist/cores) didn't slowly bleed off as the war calmed. It collapsed all the way to flat, -0.1, on June 16 when the peace deal landed, then re-steepened to -1.6 over the next ten days as the June 19 ceasefire frayed and Iran briefly re-closed the strait, even though it sat open again by Friday. The call premium left completely, then came back. These options are tracking the on-and-off ceasefire, and right now they are re-armed.
USO 30-day fitted skew slope, Feb to Jun 2026. The call-skew peaked with the war, drained to flat on the June 16 peace deal, then re-armed to -1.6 as the truce frayed. Source: ORATS /datav2/hist/cores.
Only crude is bid for the upside
This is a crude story, not an energy story. Pull the whole complex and only the barrels stand out: crude itself (USO and the Brent fund BNO) is call-skewed, while the energy equities are flat-to-put-skewed. ExxonMobil, Chevron, and oil services (OIH) sit near flat, the energy sector (XLE) reads +0.8, and oil and gas producers (XOP) are the most put-skewed of all at +2.4.
30-day fitted skew slope across the energy complex, June 26 2026. Only the crude funds (USO, BNO) are call-skewed; the energy equities are flat-to-put-skewed. Source: ORATS /datav2/hist/cores.
Across the dated July and August expiries, the chain prices out-of-the-money calls over the matching puts, with the skew slope around -1% to -1.9%. The call lean holds into the autumn before the 2027 LEAPs revert to the usual put skew (/datav2/hist/monies/implied).
USO Options Chain: every dated July and August expiry carries a negative skew slope and a call-tilted smile, with ATM vol rising from 38% to 43.5% by August. Source: ORATS dashboard, Ticker Analysis.
Is the vol itself cheap? No
Implied at 43% is essentially equal to USO's own realized-vol forecast, so the ratio sits right at 1.0, square in the neutral band, even after crushing from a 132% March peak. The level has reset to fair; the action is all in the shape.
USO 30-day implied (blue) vs realized (pink) vol, with the forward ATM-IV curve in orange. Implied crushed from a March spike above 120% to about 42% and now tracks realized; the forward curve is flat. Source: ORATS dashboard, Ticker Analysis.
Read the skew, not the ETF chart
A caveat I would flag before anyone reads this as a trade: Iran reopened and re-closed the strait more than once this month, so a fat call wing may be rational insurance rather than an edge. And USO is a futures fund tracking WTI, so its own share price hasn't retraced the way spot Brent has. The crude options are the cleaner read.
Pull USO into Ticker Analysis and open the Options Chain. Spot says the war is over; the call wing is still paying for it to come back.
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