Oil is everyone's input cost
SOFR 3.87% · 22 Sept 2026 · NY Fed · CFTC net long 135,905 contracts · 15 Sept 2026 · CFTC
Crude sits upstream of almost every price on the board — fuel, freight, plastics, and the inflation prints central banks answer for.
WTI is the US benchmark crude grade, priced at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub, and most free price feeds carry its futures rather than a spot barrel. EdgeHog's oil shape is drawn from USO, an exchange-traded fund that holds near-month WTI futures and rolls them forward as they expire — that roll can make the fund drift from the barrel price over long stretches, which is why the tile says so plainly. What makes oil worth a tile at all is its reach: it feeds the inflation numbers on the calendar, the currencies of exporters, and the cost lines of nearly every index constituent.