Is it best to buy stock from Shell or BP or is there an exchange traded fund linked to the oil price?

There are quite a few etfs linked to oil. OIL is one but I think it should be avoided. VDE is another. It holds large U S oil company stocks. RYE is an equal weight energy fund. You get an equal share in multiple oil and energy companies. It unlike most is not capitalization weighted, an important distinction. IXC is a global energy fund. It is cap weighted. XOM is 18% of its holdings. DKA perhaps is closest to what you might desire. It is an international energy etf. Its largest holdings are Shell, BP, and Total accounting for 30% of its holdings. There are others also.Is it best to buy stock from Shell or BP or is there an exchange traded fund linked to the oil price?
You can buy oil directly in the market if you are interested in taking advantage of the oil price movement itself rather than the oil companies shares, Brent Crude and West Texas Crude being the two main markets. The easiest way of doing that is to trade it via a spreadbetting platform, that way you can have a smaller position size. The other advantage of doing that is any profit you make is tax free. Alternatively you can trade the actual market with lower spreads using CFD's - contracts for difference, which is essentially the same but marginally less risky (because of the lower spread between the buying and selling price). However then your profits are taxable. Here are the links to two platforms (you will find there are a lot more providers if you do a search for them)Is it best to buy stock from Shell or BP or is there an exchange traded fund linked to the oil price?
There are lots of ETFs linked to oil in various forms: CRUD, SOIL (short), a few BRENTs: 3 months ,6 months 12 months and a lot moor I expect.


I expect there are also Covered Warrants
also uso





I happen to like BP - pays near 7% for a dividend, so you get paid to wait. Also has history of raising it, and paying most profits to share holders. Good luck to you
An oil ETF has the ticker symbol OIL. However, I can't vouch for how well this or any other oil-linked ETF will perform relative to oil itself, or relative to Shell or BP.