Oil just made a huge move, and nobody noticed

The markets have been preoccupied with a flurry of political headlines over the past few months such as the Brexit and the US presidential election.

But in the background of all this, there has been a stealth slump in crude-oil prices.

Both front-month West Texas Intermediate crude and Brent crude prices have fallen by over 20% since their respective early-June peaks of $51.23 a barrel and $52.51 a barrel.

A drop of over 20% is considered to be a bear market.

A few months ago, analysts attributed the surge in oil prices to various production outages including attacks on infrastructure by the Niger Delta Avengers and wildfires in Canada.

But here's where oil prices were as of 10:24 a.m. ET on Friday. Front-month WTI crude prices were trading at about $40.67 a barrel.

oil bear market COTD

(Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Bloomberg)

Front-month Brent prices were trading at about $41.94 a barrel.

brent (1)

(Andy Kiersz)

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