Oil and stocks sometimes trend together. Other times, they don't.
There's a widespread belief that rising oil prices are bearish for
the main stock indexes and falling oil prices are bullish for stocks.
That belief is reflected in this Sept. 5 CNBC headline:
Dow closes nearly 200 points lower as rising oil prices drag down stocks ...
But wait a minute, the broad stock market rallied in July as the price of crude oil was also climbing.
Getting back to the same financial website, an Aug. 1 headline said (CNBC):
Oil joined the July stocks rally ...
Going further back this year, an April 14 Barron's headline noted:
Oil Prices and Stocks Have Rallied ...
These cases here in 2023 are by no means the first time that the
behavior of the oil and stock markets have defied conventional wisdom.
Here's a chart and commentary from Robert Prechter's landmark book, The Socionomic Theory of Finance: