‘A Hanging Concentrates the Human Mind’
Cross-Posted at Left Flank (featuring Charlie Rose’s interview with Martin Wolf) ... see 6% GDP growth next year. And, commodity prices, including oil, continue to fall (although ... their future”: either spend, or save. I found this interesting because, amid the rush to reform [more...]
Date: 2008-10-18 04:20:55
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Deputy finance minister’s head in the sand
4 December, 2008 General News/Issues Source : Malaysiakini Deputy finance minister’s head in the sand Charles Santiago | Dec 4, 08 2: ... slashed, future orders cut down to critical levels and retrenchments are being planned. Job losses ... palm and other commodity prices. Crude oil prices dropped to a three-year-low to US$48 yesterday [more...]
Date: 2008-12-04 07:39:45
Despite recent price rise, traders seeking tankers is bearish for oil
Filed under: International markets, Commodities, OilThose investors ready to position themselves in oil stocks, or perhaps even dabble in oil futures, may want to wait a while. Oil traders are seeking ... ." Dietz added that he was currently short unleaded gasoline, with a monthly contract. Continue reading [more...]
Date: 2009-01-07 18:45:00
BIS: No Evidence of Second-Round Effects From High Oil Prices
Central bank concerns about the “second-round effects” of rising oil and food prices on medium-term inflation rates may have been without a strong ... prices. But a paper by two BIS economists found that in recent years “higher commodity prices ... began to expect higher inflation in the future.” Sweden’s Riksbank raised its key rate three times [more...]
Date: 2008-12-08 13:22:17
60 Minutes: Did Speculation Fuel Oil Price Swings?
60 Minutes: Did Speculation Fuel Oil Price Swings? (CBS) ... , a commodity that was theoretically priced according to supply and demand doubled from $69 a barrel ... at a certain price at some date in the future. Read more... January 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment [more...]
Date: 2009-01-13 00:59:56
ForexGen | Oil Falls Below $54 as US Demand Outlook Worsens
Oil falls below $54 as rising oil inventories, bad economic data point to falling US demand Oil prices fell below $54 a barrel Thursday as dismal U ... of $52.62 earlier in the session. Investors tend to increase their holdings in commodities like oil ... to $53.27 on the ICE Futures exchange. Prices have hovered just above three-year lows this week as [more...]
Date: 2008-11-28 13:16:13
Falling Down: Enviros Shouldn?t Sweat Lower Oil Prices
Falling oil prices generally aren’t good news for environmentalists ... question is how far oil can fall, and if that will be enough. Crude futures dropped below $90 a barrel ... to get cash to speculate in oil, or any other commodities market. OPEC president Chakib Khelil said [more...]
Date: 2008-10-06 19:55:00
Bush Ends Executive Ban on Off-Shore Drilling and Oil Prices Drop 7% in two trading sessions
June 20, 2008 — USA Today: Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign released remarks he plans to make at the start of a news conference in ... of futures trading in commodities. – WLS ... on July 14 — $145.18. Price of oil at close on July 16 — $134.60. “Crude-oil futures tumbled $4.14 [more...]
Date: 2008-07-17 00:34:34
Study Shows Speculators Helped LOWER Oil Prices
It was said to be the year of speculators gone wild ... , the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has offered hard statistical data that financial trading hasn't ... -month period. In other words, index traders and swap dealers were driving the future price of oil [more...]
Date: 2008-09-17 15:39:38
Oil speculation bigger than we knew
by Frank James For the past few months as oil-futures prices were breaking records with a barrel of oil topping out around $150, ... ' influence. Last month, the main U.S. regulator of commodities trading, the Commodity Futures Trading [more...]
Date: 2008-08-15 20:09:58
Oil recovers with Dow rally
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The daily survey from motorist group price of oil on Monday reversed AAA. Prices peaked at $4 ... , have already started cutting back founder of commodities brokerage on oil use, said Cordier ... has already taken investors sold off crude futures place, and it's going to take a as stock indexes around [more...]
Date: 2009-01-03 17:17:35
Olbermann Blames McCain for Bipartisan Clinton-signed 'Enron Loophole'
Almost two years ago, NewsBusters wondered when media would begin reporting Enron's ties to higher oil and gas prices ... "Enron Loophole" created by the enactment of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Though ... trading, deregulation that lets speculators overwhelm trading in oil futures, those complicated [more...]
Date: 2008-06-20 14:38:34
Speculators not to blame
In certain quarters people keep arguing that the surging oil and food prices are caused by speculative international investments in these commodities. People who understand how the market is working have always maintained that the principle effect of commodity futures is beneficial because they smooth extreme swings of prices [more...]
Date: 2008-07-11 05:22:11
Commodities Reprieve Coming to an End
A guest post from Frank Shump. Frank is a veteran from the financial services industry, and currently authors a blog called Thefinancecastle ... in the near future, as some oil fields out there aren’t nearly as cost effective at these prices ... are out there on the future of other commodities. The World Bank, for example, believes that the global [more...]
Date: 2008-12-15 16:54:45
The case for oil price speculation improves
U.C. San Diego economist Jim Hamilton has long argued that fundamental forces of supply and demand explain oil prices better than "speculation ... by David Cho, "A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading." Hamilton closed his dissection ... recently deemed by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to be more of a speculator than [more...]
Date: 2008-08-27 16:28:48
Idiots in the Intelligence Community
Idiots in the Intelligence Community Gordon G. Chang - 11.21.2008 - 1:42 PM America’s place in the sun is just about over ... to know what the future will look like is extrapolate. Nonetheless, Global Trends extrapolates. Worse ... increase in oil and commodity prices. That’s a brave assumption, when we have just seen oil fall [more...]
Date: 2008-11-21 18:42:22
Above the fold
A DAILY round-up of economic news: The bailout saga continues to turn ... for oil yesterday. Traders buying October oil futures to cover earlier sales of the contract briefly ... by resurgent commodities prices and a tangled global financial situation. [more...]
Date: 2008-09-23 14:18:14
Singapore: positioned to weather the global shock
Special Author: Pang Eng Fong, Singapore Management University Singapore’s economy grew by 7.7 per cent in 2007 ... without increasing the tax burden of future generations. The large pool of foreign workers – ... cuts. Commodity and oil prices have fallen sharply [more...]
Date: 2009-01-02 11:00:57
Closing Enron Loophole Would Drop Oil Prices 25% - 50% Overnight
The way Republicans tell it, the minute we start drilling off the coasts of California, Florida and elsewhere, the price of gas will go down ... for the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC), the government board that oversees commodities markets: “Yes ... follows.) The Enron Loophole is the nickname for a provision written into the [more...]
Date: 2008-06-22 18:55:04
BDS Media Meme Destroyed: Weak Dollar Doesn't Mean Higher Oil
As oil and gasoline prices rose throughout much of this decade, a popular media meme was that a lower dollar was largely to blame ... culminating in the commodity futures bubble that peaked in July. Yet, since early November, oil ... to that! In the end, there were a number of factors that created the energy/commodity futures [more...]
Date: 2008-12-20 17:05:30
"More Speculation about Those Oil Speculators"
A Washington Post article claiming that one firm, Vitrol, "at one point in July,.. ... , and so on. If light sweet alone, are we talking about just futures, or futures plus options? Or is Cho ... in commodity prices. Jim Hamilton throws cold water on this idea. He has other objections to the article [more...]
Date: 2008-08-22 07:24:00
Cebolas
“What onions teach us about oil prices” na CNN The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms ... in onions. The law still stands. And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices [more...]
Date: 2008-07-09 09:35:41
U.S. POWER, INFLUENCE WILL DECLINE IN FUTURE - NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL
The report aims to better inform policymakers, ... Thursday paints an alarming picture of an unstable future for international relations defined ... fueled by long-term “increases in oil and commodity prices” along with a gradual shift [more...]
Date: 2008-11-21 02:44:43
Oil Prices and Speculation
The Washington Post says the scale of speculative activity in commodities markets is larger than previous estimates indicated: A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading, by David Cho, Washington Post ... helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses. But when the Commodity Futures [more...]
Date: 2008-08-21 07:42:00
Oil Reclaims $120 a Barrel
The rebound in oil, which has carried crude past $121 a barrel, can no longer be dismissed as a “blip” after crude fell within $110 last week ... like much. With varying fundamental issues in play, traders are also looking at the price ... analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures. Mr. McGillian says this rally will have to push through [more...]
Date: 2008-08-21 15:33:19
Commodity Boom Turns Bust in 2008 as Worldwide Economy Crumbles
Commodity prices in 2008 plunged the most in five decades as demand for energy, metals and grains tumbled in the second half because of the recession ... . Sugar, gold and hogs were the only other commodities to post gains. Gasoline futures declined ... on July 11. The 2008 low was 78.5 cents on Dec. 24. Crude oil futures tumbled a record 54 percent [more...]
Date: 2009-01-02 21:23:20
Commodity Boom Turns Bust in 2008 as Worldwide Economy Crumbles
Commodity prices in 2008 plunged the most in five decades as demand for energy, metals and grains tumbled in the second half because of the recession ... . Sugar, gold and hogs were the only other commodities to post gains. Gasoline futures declined ... on July 11. The 2008 low was 78.5 cents on Dec. 24. Crude oil futures tumbled a record 54 percent [more...]
Date: 2009-01-03 09:25:14
Economics 101 for Congress
The New Hampshire Union Leader has a great idea.MAYBE THE quickest way to lower oil and gas prices would be this: ... on them the price would fall. But here is what Walter Lukken, chairman of the Commodity Futures ... are not unregulated traders, as Shaheen keeps saying. The real problem is that with demand continuing [more...]
Date: 2008-07-14 13:18:00
Oil's Well That Ends Well
Well, no shit Sherlock speculation drove up the price of oil to obscene levels, as did the nonsense of "peak oil ... the commodities futures market. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, it's traded alongside cotton [more...]
Date: 2009-01-12 02:34:00
Gas Prices: Boy, was I wrong….
Back in May, I wrote an article on the continuously rising gas prices and future predictions ... Merrill Lynch Commodity Strategist Francisco Blanch and Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski, say that crude oil [more...]
Date: 2008-12-07 21:45:24
CFTC Report on High Oil Prices - "Speculation My A$$"
With a pending Senate vote on the "Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act", it seems that we (not the TOD 'we', but the collective society 'we') ... . In this report, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), threw cold water on the recent ... , activity on the crude oil futures market – as measured by the number of contracts outstanding, trading [more...]
Date: 2008-07-23 14:47:59
What do onion prices tell us about oil prices?
A reader asked me a while back what I thought of this little article by my former Fortune colleague Jon Birger about onions: The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin [more...]
Date: 2008-07-08 11:45:33
'60 Minutes': Did speculation fuel oil price?
There was an excellent item last night on 60 Minutes about the role speculators played in the oil price spike this summer ... problem was a result of the commodities markets being "invaded by a new breed of investor." "Approximately 60 to 70 percent of the oil contracts in the futures markets are now held by speculative [more...]
Date: 2009-01-12 06:26:00
Green Ink: Subprime Renewables
paper Crude oil futures jumped for the second straight day to more than $42 due to violence in the Middle East and Chinese stockpiling of oil, ... reqd.). Cratering energy and commodity prices push Kuwait to nix a $17 billion deal with Dow Chemical [more...]
Date: 2008-12-29 12:59:49
Corn v. Crude
Why are corn and oil prices rising in tandem? I've become a bit obsessive about oil prices -- I check them online several times each day, just out of habit. But most other commodities remain something of a mystery to me. I keep ... from the phenomenally helpful futuresource.com, comparing the rise in recent futures contracts for corn [more...]
Date: 2008-07-15 22:42:50
Overnight markets: Down
Asian stocks and US futures slid Thursday, following US and European markets down amid fresh fears that worldwide bank rescue programmes have come too late. Crude oil prices fell to 13-month lows as commodities prices tumbled across the board. US markets (Wed) DJIA down 733.08 at 8,577.91 Nasdaq... [more...]
Date: 2008-10-16 04:44:46
Does Matt Simmons still expect $200 oil in two years?
The price for a barrel of oil has fallen from $145 in July to less than $40 ... . The last time commodity prices soared, in the late 1970s, Simon bet environmental scaremonger Paul ... to bet against energy or any other resource becoming scarcer and more expensive in the future,” Tierney [more...]
Date: 2008-12-19 16:38:49
Democratic Energy Bill Defeated; Republicans Show Some Stones
—Gabriel Malor Harry Reid's attempt to interfere in the commodities exchanges failed this morning along mostly partisan lines. Democrats are blaming high gasoline prices on "excessive" speculation in oil and gas futures. This is typical of Democrats, who would rather blame hedge funds (framed as "fat cats", but who serve [more...]
Date: 2008-07-25 18:45:08
OIL PRICE SHOCKS - THE REAL CULPRITS
It is clear as to who is driving up the prices of Crude and Commodities. It is not the producers or the demand supply gap that is making the lives of billions of people horrible. It is the traders, hedge funds and banking giants and large investors in Futures Commodity [more...]
Date: 2008-06-18 01:27:37
Oil Prices Mixed As Market Focuses On Soft Demand
NEW YORK: Oil prices were mixed on Tuesday as market concerns about soft demand eclipsed supply concerns amid rising geopolitical tensions in the ... due to deepening geopolitical frictions, analysts said. The New York futures contract hit an intra ... of an economic recovery in 2009, hedge funds back on commodities and finally cold temperatures,” said [more...]
Date: 2009-01-07 03:30:26
Oil Squeeze? Blame Yourself
The Journal’s Russell Gold reports: When it comes to the price of crude oil and gasoline, who is in the driver’s seat? One common answer is no one ... into the commodity futures market. All of this plays a role: the availability of supply, financial market interest in commodities, and don’t forget the strength of the U.S. dollar (the global [more...]
Date: 2008-09-03 18:43:00
Closing Enron Loophole Would Drop Oil Prices 25% - 50% Overnight
Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review. Drilling off the coast of California, ... by Michael Greenberger, the former director of Trading & Markets for the Commodities Future Trading ... follows.) The Enron Loophole is the nickname for a provision written into the Commodity Futures [more...]
Date: 2008-06-22 19:42:52
Oil falls below $54 as US demand outlook worsens
Markets in the United States are closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, but electronic trading on the Nymex continues ... from a low of $52.62 earlier in the session. Investors tend to increase their holdings in commodities ... cents to $53.21 on the ICE Futures exchange. Prices have hovered just above three-year lows [more...]
Date: 2008-11-27 13:01:00
Gold gains in broad-based commodities surge
Gold and other metals futures rallied Monday, getting a boost from soaring oil prices, weakness in the U.S. dollar and President-elect Barack Obama's pledge of a massive new infrastructure investment [more...]
Date: 2008-12-08 22:11:22
The Top 10 Biofuels Stories of the Year: #6, Commodity prices
Palm, corn, wheat, ethanol, oil, and soybeans went on their biggest Coney Island rollercoaster ride ever this year, with corn rising as high last summer as $7.85 in the futures markets before falling to $3.50 late ... , had just two biodiesel plants operating in the country. Corn, soybean futures rise sharply on weak [more...]
Date: 2008-12-31 12:59:02
Merrill’s Three ‘C’s for the Market
Could declining commodity prices be a major theme for the markets in the third quarter? Crude-oil futures are dropping like a stone this morning amid a strengthening dollar ... futures dropped as well, tumbling more than $12 to around $921 an ounce in recent Comex trading [more...]
Date: 2008-07-07 14:41:09
Oil prices end tumultuous year on calm note, down slightly
Oil prices ended the year on a calm note on Wednesday, ... -year lows. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, eased 13 ... torrid few months, a hell of a lot of uncertainty,” said Mark Pervan, senior commodities analyst for ANZ [more...]
Date: 2008-12-31 06:48:11
President Bush Threatens Veto of Poison-pill Laden Drilling Bill; Oil Falls to $90/bbl
—Gabriel Malor So far, Republicans have managed not to cave on offshore drilling (though ANWR seems to be out of the question) ... . In related news, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission actually looked through the data ... the six-month period. In other words, index traders and swap dealers were driving the future price [more...]
Date: 2008-09-17 14:55:10
Commodity Boom Turns Bust in 2008 as Worldwide Economy Crumbles
By Pham-Duy Nguyen Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) — Commodity prices in 2008 plunged the most in five decades as demand for energy, ... , the slumping economy drove crude oil, gasoline, copper, corn, and wheat down from records in the first ... commodities to post gains. Gasoline futures declined to $1.0082 a gallon last year on the New York [more...]
Date: 2009-01-01 18:57:26
Why is Gas at $4 a Gallon?
Conspiracy theories abound, but the soaring price of crude oil (today around $137 a barrel) is related to four more mundane forces: (1) ... is one of the commodities that looks like a good bet. Hence, there's speculation in oil futures [more...]
Date: 2008-06-09 14:05:56
