Goldman Sachs raised its December Brent forecast to $105 from $90. It lifted its 2027 Brent average to $88 from $80.
The reason? A "1mb/d global supply disruption allowance."
Read that again. Goldman admits the timing and location of disruptions are "nearly impossible to predict." Then it prices them anyway. To the barrel. In a spreadsheet.
That is a weather forecast for a hurricane that might hit Tuesday, or Ohio, or never. The forecast comes with a decimal point.
Strategist Daan Struyven led the note. Struyven looked at Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and "broader geopolitical fragmentation." He then added one million barrels of chaos to the model and called it a base case. Bold. Somewhere an intern got a bonus for typing "whoops" in column F.
Goldman says the market is pricing a $27 risk premium. That equals a five million barrel-a-day drop in Middle East output lasting six months. Nobody knows if that happens. Goldman knows what it would cost, though.
Last February, Goldman put Q4 Brent at $60. It has now revised that number up by $45. The war did not change. The spreadsheet did.
Retail traders will see "Goldman raises" and buy USO calls by lunch. They will hold through the midterms on November 3. They will treat a bank's guess about a guess as a signal from God.
It is not a signal. It is a bank rounding up its anxiety.
A chart does not care about Struyven's note. Price already rose 14% in October. The forecast arrived after the move, like a fireman showing up to explain how fire works.
Goldman also says Brent could hit $140 if Gulf output stays depressed. Great. Add that to the $105, the $88, the $80, and the $60. Pick a number. Any number. Goldman has one that was right at some point.
If you bought oil because Goldman raised a forecast, congratulations on your new job as exit liquidity for a man named Daan.
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