EC Does The S&P Really Need Higher Oil?

The steady drumbeat of lower and lower Crude Oil prices continues. Oil’s fall from its peak in 2014 is up to an astounding 67%. This is fast approaching the largest decline in history, the 68% drop during the financial crisis of 2008-09.

With the S&P 500 struggling to hit new highs in 2015, much of the blame has been placed on lower Oil prices. If only Oil prices were higher, say the pundits, stocks would be soaring. But how accurate is this story? Do stocks really need higher Oil to perform well?

Let’s take a look back at history.

We have data on Crude Oil (Generic First Futures via Bloomberg) going back to March 1983. The monthly correlation to the S&P 500 since then? Essentially zero (.05).

Looking at the rolling 1-year correlation, we can see there are times where Oil and equities are positively correlated and other times when they are negatively correlated.

During the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, the correlation between equities and Crude became more consistently positive and higher than in prior cycles.

Why? A deflationary, depression-like collapse was the major fear in 2008, and lower Crude prices that year were said to be a harbinger of bad things to come. When that theory did not materialize in 2009, the opposite was said to be true. The rally in Crude was thought to be a positive, indicating reflation and stronger global growth.

This relationship would persist until 2014 when Crude began its most recent collapse. Since then, while equities have struggled to hit new highs, there has been little overall correlation with Oil.

This is more in line with history, as evidenced by the table below displaying calendar year returns in Crude Oil and the S&P. Some thoughts on their unpredictable relationship: