He has a high-stakes job. War and natural disasters keep him on his toes. He is often on a plane to far-flung places, travelling to negotiate with local leaders. He has the best intelligence money can buy. And as November’s election nears, he will spend lots of time looking at lines on charts. The American president and swashbuckling oil traders, it turns out, have a lot in common. Indeed, Joe Biden also seems to have a knack for the oil trade. Two years ago his administration initiated the largest ever sell-off from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (spr), an emergency store...