Brent Crude Oil (BZ) July (N) contract study: year-by-year results, the day-by-day shape of the move and where highs and lows printed.
Contract Almanac · Brent Crude
Every clean July Brent contract 2012–2026, measured over its tenure as the lead contract · Typically leads Apr 26 – May 26
The July contract is the Brent board’s sternest lesson in reading counts beside averages: a +3.4% average against a −2.5% median, because one tenure, the 2020 rebound, gained 57.3%, the largest in our entire Brent file, while five of every eight ordinary years lost money. It leads from late April through May, when summer is already in the price.
Each year is one contract, measured from the open of the day it took over the lead to the close of the day it handed off, the same roll convention used across all Traders Brief research. One honesty note specific to Brent: the contract’s early CME-era history contains roll irregularities, and those irregular tenures are excluded, leaving 11 to 14 clean observations per month rather than the full 16 available elsewhere. The counts shown are the cleaned record. All highs and lows are the contract’s own trades, marked by trading day of the tenure, not calendar day.