Ping!
NUTS!
Oh, please. The answer is not the eeeeeeevil speculators; the answer is DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW.
I love this “blame the speculators” BS. The whole point of a financial market is that everyone sees the exact same bid & offer.
Any price a “speculator” can buy you can too, and the same for any price he can sell. In fact, you have the advantage because he needs to move more contracts so you can find liquidity when he can’t. There is no evil black magic he can use to change these facts...he makes money at the same risk, he’s just better at it.
I can’t stand hearing people whine about “manipulation”, because if you really know better where the price should be than the thousands upon thousands of people whose job is based on accurate pricing then there’s nothing stopping you from putting your money where your mouth is and making a killing.
In fact if you’re confident enough in your opinion, leverage in the futures markets will let you make not only enough to more than cancel out whatever you pay (or have paid) to fill your tank, but enough to retire a hundred times over.
If my premise is true then Bush could further reform the oil futures market. He’s already ordered the SEC to forbid bidding on the same barrels of oil from multiple speculators. He could order that speculation require a larger percentage of the bid price up front. This would help offset OPEC which may cut production at its next meeting. It would also undercut dems complaining about speculators as long as the new rules don’t make the price plunge dramatically. Then driling would still be a hot topic but keep the economy humming.
ping
There was an article from Reuters covering a governmental paper released by the CFTC, several weeks ago. Very peculiar, circumspect language, referring to an unnamed “very special trader.” This “very special trader” was reclassified as speculative, and controlled 460 million barrels of oil. Nearly US$60 billion dollars at the time. That’s well above 11%.
My concern is with the companies buying oil dependent companies on the dips - and selling on the highs. For example, say I know oil's going up in price - and that airline stocks will be going down... or the reverse. I can "time" the market. Just bleed it dry. When there's enough holdings in a small number of hands, it's a cornered market.
fyi
No doubt the Bilderbergers are behind this.