Just catching up with this thread and am nodding in agreement with wretchard and RAH. Even if whiskey is right and Putin is gambling on the oil market (and I don’t disagree), it doesn’t look like a good bet right now. Oil is still around $115/barrel and is not moving much. If there was going to be a big movement in price, it would have happened on Monday, after a backlog of disturbing news piled up over the weekend.

Right now the oil traders aren’t paying Vlad much respect; all they see is global recession and low demand. And guess what? If Vlad continues to roil the waters, the anxiety won’t exactly help the world economy, which in turn will help keep oil prices low. 2 months ago, something like this would have caused a 5% one-day pop in oil; not now.