Oil Trading Without The Dollar: What It Could Mean For ETFs

As the dollar and its exchange traded funds (ETFs) continue to decline, some have thrown around the idea of shifting oil trade away from of the dollar, but is this actually possible?

Advocates want to want to shift oil trade to a basket of currencies as opposed to just the dollar because of the weakness of the greenback. They realize that this measure will take very broad backing, states David Lawer of Reuters. Oil-rich nations, such as Iran, have reaped billions of dollars of profits and averted losses by shifting reserves to the euro and other currencies from the dollar.

If the move where to happen, some believe that the delinking of the dollar and oil would actually stabilize crude prices, giving more currencies to bounce along beside each another, states Robert Fisk in a Public Radio interview.

But the move would be challenging. Opponents say it just doesn’t make sense, because it would be complicated and expensive task to coordinate a collective move to another currency basket for crude.  Additionally, there are political obstacles that will need to be overcome for the switch to happen.

Two ETFs that are being affected and will most likely to continue to be affected by this news are:

• The United States Oil Fund (USO): up 10.4% year-to-date

• The PowerShares DB USD Index Bullish (UUP): down 8.2% year-to-date

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