“Given the continued U.S. dollar appreciation, $20-$25 oil price scenarios are possible simply due to currency,” the Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note. “The U.S. dollar and non-fundamental factors continue to drive oil prices.”
Goldman Sachs Group has also forecasted oil to drop to $20 per barrel but attributes further weakness to potential storage tank limits as producers keep pumping until they completely fill up storage space and halt some production.
Whichever the case may be, investors can utilize a number of inverse or bearish ETF options to hedge against further declining energy prices. For instance, the United States Short Oil (NYSEArca: DNO) tracks the opposite moves of the West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, and the DB Crude Oil Short ETN (NYSEArca: SZO) also tracks the simple inverse of oil. Over the past three months, DNO gained 64.9% and SZO rose 64.5%. [Leveraged ETFs Are Popular Plays Among Swing Traders]
For the more aggressive trader, there are number of leveraged options, including the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil (NYSEArca: SCO), which tries to reflect the two times inverse or -200% daily performance of WTI crude oil, and DB Crude Oil Double Short ETN (NYSEArca: DTO), which also follows a -200% performance of oil, jumped 17.4%. Lastly, the VelocityShares 3x Inverse Crude (NYSEArca: DWTI) takes the three times inverse or -300% performance of crude oil. Over the past three months, SCO increased 155.4%, DTO advanced 151.9% and DWTI surged 302.2%.
Max Chen contributed to this article.