Crude oil cleared $100 a barrel multiple times in April 2026, and the move was not subtle. WTI peaked at nearly $115 in early April; Brent reached about $138 in the same period; and the three ETFs most investors reach for to trade crude have moved with the underlying. United States Oil Fund (NYSEARCA:USO), United States Brent Oil Fund (NYSEARCA:BNO), and the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSEARCA:XOP) all sit at year-to-date gains few sectors can match in 2026.
The three funds look similar at first glance, but they answer very different questions once you dig into what each one actually owns. USO and BNO are commodity‑pool vehicles that track the futures curve and move with market structure. XOP holds the upstream producers whose earnings rise and fall with the same barrel. Each fund expresses a different view on what comes after the next $100 print.
What Is Driving Crude Above $100
The rally has been fast and tightly packed. WTI slipped to roughly $55 in mid‑December 2025, then sprinted to the April peak before easing back toward $100 in late April. The current level sits in the 96th percentile of the trailing one‑year range, which the FRED series treats as inflationary territory.
The drivers are familiar. Geopolitical risk has added a premium, OPEC+ has kept supply tight, and non‑OPEC production has been slipping. Retail sentiment has swung wildly. Over the past month, Reddit threads have bounced between a bullish “Best Investment for a Long War” narrative on r/stocks and a sharp bearish turn tied to headlines claiming that “UAE leaving OPEC breaks the cartel.” Volatility has been the constant. April alone covered a range from $86 to $115 in WTI.
USO: The Default WTI Trade
USO is the most direct retail vehicle for exposure to West Texas Intermediate. The fund holds front-month WTI futures and rolls them forward each month, which makes it the simplest way to express “oil goes up” without opening a futures account. The performance reflects that linkage. USO is up 108% year to date and 131% over the trailing year, with shares recently trading around $144.
The mechanism is also the tradeoff. USO tracks futures, not the spot price visible on cable news tickers. When the curve is in contango, monthly rolls cost the fund money even when spot is flat, which is why USO’s 10-year return of 64% trails what a steady spot price would have delivered. Investors also receive a K-1 at tax time because the fund is structured as a limited partnership, which complicates filings for some holders.
USO trades better on shorter holding periods when the thesis is a directional move in WTI. It works less well as a multi-year buy-and-hold on the commodity itself.
BNO: The Brent Pick That Tracks the Right Benchmark
BNO is the overlooked option on this list. Most retail investors default to USO because it carries the more recognizable name, yet Brent is the benchmark that prices roughly two-thirds of the world’s seaborne crude and is more sensitive to the OPEC+ and geopolitical dynamics actually driving the current move. Brent crossed $138 in early April while WTI peaked closer to $114, a gap that widened as Middle East and shipping risk premiums repriced.
The performance tells the story. BNO is up 105% year to date and 128% over the past year, with the fund trading near $58. Over a ten‑year window, BNO has gained about 320%, which puts it well ahead of USO over the same period. A big part of that gap stems from the fact that Brent has spent far less time in deep contango than WTI has.
The structural caveats are identical to USO. Same LP wrapper, same K-1 form, same roll exposure. BNO carries less daily volume than USO, which can widen bid-ask spreads on larger orders. A Reddit post in early April flagged exactly this trade: “Futures Trade – Long Brent (BNO / BZ) Short WTI (USO / MCL).” The point of holding BNO over USO is that, when the marginal driver of crude is global supply or geopolitics rather than U.S. inventories, Brent is the cleaner instrument.
XOP: Operating Leverage Through the Producers
XOP is the picks-and-shovels alternative to the futures funds. The ETF holds U.S. exploration and production companies on an equal-weight basis, which means a $20 billion mid-cap producer carries roughly the same weight as ExxonMobil. The top 10 sit between about 3% each, with Venture Global, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Gulfport Energy, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Coterra Energy, Texas Pacific Land, Devon Energy, and Magnolia Oil & Gas filling the leaderboard. The expense ratio is 0.35%.
The investment logic is operating leverage. An E&P producer with breakeven economics around $45 per barrel sees outsized earnings growth when crude prices are in the triple digits. That is also why XOP’s year-to-date gain of 44% trails the commodity ETFs. Equity investors discount future cash flows and assume some mean reversion in oil prices rather than capitalizing the spot move directly. Over the trailing year, XOP is up 64%, with shares around $181.
The tradeoff is the equal-weight structure. Smaller producers carry more debt, less hedging discipline, and higher beta to crude in both directions. XOP outperforms when oil rallies and producers are unhedged, and it can underperform a market-cap-weighted alternative if integrated majors lead a defensive tape. XOP also pays distributions from its holdings rather than tracking spot, so it functions as an equity-income vehicle on top of its commodity bet.
Choosing Between the Three
The decision framework is simple. An investor with a short‑to‑medium‑term view on WTI will find USO the most direct way to express it. An investor who believes the next move in crude will be driven by global supply dynamics, OPEC+ behavior, or shipping risk will gravitate toward BNO, accepting lower liquidity in exchange for a benchmark that better reflects those forces. An investor who wants exposure to the same theme but prefers earnings, free cash flow, and dividends over a rolling futures position will look at XOP, where equity beta works in both directions.
The funds also pair well together. A barbell of BNO for the commodity move and XOP for the operating leverage captures both the spot price and the producer cash flows without the overlap that comes from holding two futures‑based products. With WTI hovering near $100 and Brent trading above it, the open question is which structure best fits the next phase of the move.
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