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Perhaps...but the posters point was that "speculators" manipulate the oil market...and that the "futures market" was the cause or contributed to the "manipulation"...nothing could be further from the truth.

Speculators provide liquidity to the market...and the markets themselves perform fine.

How could you possibly manipulate the oil futures market without taking delivery of the physical oil and hording it like the Hunts did silver? And in reality was it market manipulation? I don't think so.

The Hunts bought legally and took possession of silver. The deliverable supply began to dry up, and as prices rose, speculators fed the frenzy. Yes they were guilty of conspiracy...and they ended up bankrupt...

The Hunts couldn't unload their 200 million ounces of silver on the market in one day, and they were just as susceptible to a falling market as the next guy. They became victims of their own greed...and though they actually made money on their physical silver...they got hammered by their long contracts...

It was the silver derivative market that handed them their own heads...the market worked...

There are oil markets in every major financial center on the planet...from London to Dubai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York...

In order to manipulate one...you would have to manipulate all...not possible.

Speculators and traders in a million years could never manipulate the oil market now. With the terrorist risk premium looming...it would be suicide.

A far more likely scenario would be for the Arab sheiks to take one side of the market and then move the price on "news"...After all...it was the Saudi Royal family that was in bed with the Hunts...

But thats not 'speculator' manipulation...that is the predatory practice of a global cartel...

Every time the price of oil goes up...I always hear this nonsense about about the oil markets being manipulated by speculators plying their trade in the contract market...I find it nearly humorous if it didn't sound so pathetic and desperate...