Pledges to reduce production means oil will be best investment bet in 2017

With Donald Trump set to enter the White House later this month and populists on the march across Europe, political risk will loom large in 2017.

Cautious investors may find stability in an unfamiliar place: the oil market.

A deal between Opec members and other producers to limit output next year won’t simply syphon off some of the global glut of crude: if participating nations make the cuts they’ve promised, the effort will also add to a buffer of unused capacity that can be tapped to plug supply disruptions.