Here’s how insanely volatile oil prices have been this year (USO, WTI, OIL)

We’ve seen some epic swings in crude oil prices to start 2016.

And as this chart from Strategas shows, there have been 24 days in 2016 during which oil prices have moved by more than 5% intra-day.

Trading has only taken place on 26 days.

In the few years before oil prices crashed last year, a move this big was a rare occurrence and in 2013 there was no day with a trading range this wide.

For a sense of how epic oil trading is shaping up to be in 2016, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced earlier today that it saw a trading volume record on Tuesday for West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude oil futures on as 1.6 million contracts traded hands.

On Tuesday, crude oil prices nosedived, with WTI futures in New York falling by more than 6% and below $28 a barrel with the sell-off coming amid more signs from the International Energy Agency that OPEC oil production continues rising.

This year, crude oil is down 25%, after peaking just above $38 on the first trading day of the year.

Crude oil futures fell to a three-week low on Wednesday, falling about 2% to trade near $27.40 a barrel.

Strategas