Founder’s Note: Jason Perz knows commodities and the way they move as well as anybody I know.
He says (and writes) a lot of interesting things. When he says something like, “The energy squeeze is just starting,” I pay close attention.
I think you should, too… – JC
By Jason Perz
Let’s take a look at the structure of the cycle:
Gold moves first.
It’s the monetary metal. It sniffs out liquidity before the economy feels it.
When gold breaks out, it’s telling you capital is leaving paper and moving into hard assets.
Then copper moves.
Copper is not theory. It’s wiring, machinery, infrastructure, housing, data centers.
When copper starts ripping, it means money is flowing into mining, production, and real economic expansion.
Mania phases don’t start with oil. They start with metals. Mining capex explodes. Exploration budgets surge. Equipment orders rise. Smelters fire back up. That’s capital deployment.
Then oil moves last.
Because once you dig it out of the ground, refine it, transport it, and build it, you need energy to do so. Diesel for machinery. Gasoline for transport. Diesel (Heating oil) for industrial processes.
The final stage of the commodity cycle is energy demand overwhelming supply.
The chart shows it clearly:
- gold trends first;
- copper confirms; and
- oil lags, then squeezes hard.
Oil doesn’t start the party. It finishes it.
Oil: The News Failure That Changed Everything
Now let’s talk about oil specifically.
The average gasoline price just peaked above $2 (excluding taxes, transit, overhead, and margin) in every single state for the first time in 2026.
That matters. Because politically and psychologically, that level was supposed to hold.
Think about the narrative…
“Drill baby drill.”
“I want gasoline under $2.”
Every pro-supply headline should have sent oil lower. Every speech should have pressured crude.
And then we got the Venezuela news, the kind of headline that normally devastates prices if the market is weak.
It didn’t:
It reversed. That’s a “news failure” event.
When the biggest bearish catalyst you can imagine hits… and price refuses to break… that tells you supply-demand dynamics underneath are stronger than the narrative.
I bought the oil bottom the day that Venezuela’s headline hit.
Because at that moment I realized something: If oil won’t go down on maximum bearish news, it’s not going down.
Markets move in the opposite direction of the news at turning points.
That’s how bottoms form.
Now look at the weekly chart. Structure is being built. Higher lows are forming. The downtrend momentum is fading.
Meanwhile, copper is already firm. Gold already broke out.
Cycle logic says oil is next.
And if gasoline is already above $2 everywhere before the real squeeze begins, what happens when energy demand accelerates during a late cycle expansion?
You don’t get cheaper gasoline.
You get upside volatility.
Why This Matters
In mania phases, money floods into mining and metals first. That’s capex expansion. Then the energy complex catches up because production, transport, and industrial throughput require fuel.
Energy is the final bottleneck. And bottlenecks create price spikes.
This isn’t random. It’s how commodity cycles have worked for decades.
Gold signals liquidity. Copper confirms growth. Oil reflects demand stress.
We’re already through phase one. Phase two is well underway. Phase three is just getting started.
And the market just gave us a textbook news failure at the oil lows. Telling us that we could see upside potential this year.
Oil over 100? Extremely possible.
That’s not noise.
That’s a tell.
Save the bees,
Jason Perz
Senior Analyst, TrendLabs