WTI fell 6.6%, and the fund in the nearest contract fell harder than the 12-month fund

West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 6.6% by 10:24 a.m. ET on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, to $97.25 a barrel, from Friday's settle of $104.12. Both oil funds hold that crude, the light, sweet grade delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, were down 6.7%, at $105.88, from Friday's settle of $113.43.

Reuters reported that Iranian and Qatari officials were in talks on a deal to end the US-Israeli war on Iran, aimed at ending the war with the United States. Reuters said the talks raised hopes that Middle East supply disruptions could ease.

"The new month brought with it renewed hopes of a breakthrough in the Iranian stalemate," Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM told Reuters.

The commodity funds did not fall together.

United States Commodity Funds LLC's United States Oil Fund USO was down 5.7%. United States Commodity Funds LLC's United States 12 Month Oil Fund USL was down 4.2%. The iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust GSG was down 2.7%. Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF PDBC was down 2.4%. Aberdeen Investments' abrdn Bloomberg All Commodity Strategy K-1 Free ETF BCI was down 1.3%.

No K-1 and K-1 Free, in the Invesco and Aberdeen names, refer to a tax form. The two oil funds are partnerships. United States Commodity Funds says each issues a Schedule K-1, which reports a holder's share of the partnership's income, instead of a Form 1099.

Monday's column is the live share price at 10:24 a.m. ET, not the closing price. The other column is the change in the closing share price from the last session of 2025 through Oct. 30.

Replacing an expiring contract

These funds do not buy barrels of oil, ounces of gold or bushels of corn. They buy futures contracts, and a futures contract expires. Before it does, the fund sells it and buys a contract for a later month.

If the contract it sells is priced above the one it buys, the gap adds to the return. If the later contract costs more, the gap subtracts. The cash posted against the futures can earn interest.

A holder's return is the commodity's move, that gap and the interest, minus the fee.

Bloomberg Professional Services wrote on Oct. 8 that the Bloomberg Commodity Index recorded a 5% positive roll yield through the third quarter, the highest for that period since 2003. That 5% is Bloomberg's measure, for its own index, of how much replacing expiring contracts added.

A positive roll yield means the contract closest to expiration, the near-month contract, was the expensive one, and selling it to buy a later month paid the holder.

The last full inventory report still showed crude stocks below the seasonal norm. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said commercial crude stocks, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, were 410.6 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 23, 4% below the five-year average for this time of year. Monday's move, in Reuters' account, was about the chance that the disruption from the war eases, not about a new surplus in that report.

Same oil, twelve months

USO is built for the near-month contract. United States Commodity Funds says the daily change in its net asset value is meant to reflect the daily change in the price of light, sweet crude delivered at Cushing, as measured by that contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange, plus interest on the cash posted against the futures, minus expenses.

The fund rolls out of that contract and into the next one over five days at the start of each month. Monday is the first session of November, so that roll has started.

USL is the same oil, spread across time. Its benchmark is the near-month contract and the 11 that follow, 12 months in all, each month equally weighted.

Through Friday, Oct. 30, USO shares were up 144.1% in 2026. USL shares were up 93.3%. The gap is 50.8 percentage points, in two funds that hold the same commodity and a different set of months.

USO charges 0.86%. USL charges 1.01%. A fee gap of 0.15 percentage points does not account for the gap in the share prices.

When the near-month contract is the expensive one, selling it and buying a later month pays the holder. A fund that sits in that contract collects the payment on the whole position. USO is that fund.

USL holds the same oil in equal pieces across 12 months, so only the piece that is rolling collects the full payment.

On Monday both fell with West Texas Intermediate. USO fell 1.5 percentage points more than USL. The contract the talks are marking down is the one USO is built to hold. In USL it is one month of twelve.

The broad commodity funds

The broad funds hold oil as one piece of a larger set of contracts. On Monday GSG fell more than BCI.

The S&P GSCI, which GSG tracks, is a world production-weighted index. S&P Dow Jones Indices said in November 2025, when it set the 2026 weights, that energy would remain the largest sector.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which BCI tracks, weights commodities for production and liquidity. On Sept. 30, 2026, Bloomberg's fact sheet put gold at 11.46% of the index, the largest single commodity, ahead of Brent at 10.88%. Energy was 38.89%.

Gold futures were up 1.7% as of 10:14 a.m. ET, at $3,966.50 an ounce, from Friday's settle of $3,898.90. BCI fell the least of the five. Gold was the largest single weight in the index it tracks.

Invesco runs PDBC actively.

A holder of USO owns the contract the talks are marking down, including on a morning when the fund has started its five-day roll into the next month. A holder of USL owns that contract as one month of twelve.

A holder of GSG owns a production-weighted basket in which energy is the largest sector. A holder of BCI owns a basket whose largest single weight at the end of September was gold, which rose while oil fell.