OPEC seeks crackdown on speculators

[Joanne98]

Source: Boston.com

GENEVA — Oil speculators, including traders at hedge funds and investment banks, intensify crude price volatility and need to be regulated, ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said yesterday.

“Acute and excessive price speculation’’ is determining oil prices, Germanico Pinto, OPEC’s president and Ecuador’s oil minister, said at a conference in Geneva. “Prices are driven by something totally unrelated to supply and demand.’’

OPEC agreed last week in Vienna to keep production quotas unchanged as ministers expressed contentment with oil at about $80 a barrel. While prices are “not high at all,’’ and at a level that is acceptable to producers, the market must still be regulated to avoid excessive price volatility, according to the United Arab Emirates’ oil minister, Mohamed al-Hamli.

“We always have problems with speculators, especially noncommercial speculators,’’ Hamli told reporters at the conference. “We need some regulation, because we see prices very high and very low and sometimes they attribute this to OPEC.’’


Read more: http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2010/03/23/opec_seeks_crackdown_on_speculators/

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Oil should go up today because of the AIPAC demand that the US put sanctions on Iran. BUT Greece is tanking the Euro again so oil/gold and stocks could go down due to the rise in the dollar.

All things being equal it could just stay flat.

[Joanne98]

1. Oil futures trade flat as dollar gains; supply data ahead

FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures traded little changed on Tuesday, as the U.S. dollar's strength and expectations of a rise in crude supplies capped gains in the energy markets.

Crude oil for May delivery, the new front-month contract, gained 6 cents to $81.66 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.

Oil futures finished slightly higher on Monday, reversing intraday losses.

"In the short term, trading is likely to remain characterized by high volatility," said analysts at Commerzbank AG in a note to clients.

"The E.U.'s inability to agree on specific financial support for Greece in the run-up to the E.U. summit should put the euro under further pressure and, hence, should weigh on crude-oil prices," they said.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-futures-trade-flat-as-dollar-gains-vs-euro-2010-03-23

[FBaggins]

2. So what you're saying is...

... that oil prices should go up, but they could also go down... or they might not change at all?

Thanks for the tip! :)

[Joanne98]

3. You're welcome. lol

[customerserviceguy]

4. Sounds like a fight

between Ticketmaster and the corner street scalpers.

[Demeter]

6. Appropos!

[Mopar151]

7. "Scalpers" is an excellent metaphor....n/t

[Demeter]

5. So, the Arabs Going After Goldman, or Just Speculators in General?

If anyone's going to profit, it is they, not speculators?

[Mark D.]

8. Good Move

Ask many Americans why gas prices are high, they'll often say: "A-rabs". American gets 2/3 of its oil from North America. 3/4 from the Western Hemisphere. The biggest oil producing country in the Middle East probably gives us less than 5%. But the scapegoating works and endorses those wars...

Drill Baby Drill won't solve anything, but it has a nice ring similar to the 'I'll drive an SUV, or a Humvee, because I'm an American and it's my patriotic freedom to waste gas if I want to' and it is no surprise that demand for the SUV and especially Humvee tumbled when gas prices went up. But why?

It mattered then, to them. The ignorant and self centered group of Americans that keep us looking backwards. Once blame on the 'A-Rabs' and wars in their countries were found to do nothing for the prices, they stopped buying the gas-guzzlers. It affected them, and only then, does anything matter.

The speculators were 100% behind the spike to over $5 a gallon in the summer before the market crash in 2008. Hedge Fund & CDS banker gambling games teetered the economy. JPM Chase power moves crippled Bear Stearns, and ultimately toppled Lehman Bros. Their protege' Goldman Sachs had a hand in it also.

But like the Morgan name was on what was then the 3rd largest bank (that's now the largest, post-crisis, mission accomplished) it is also on the 2nd largest investment house, Morgan Stanley. They were the LARGEST energy speculator. When the market got bad, they bailed, and prices went back down.

But damage done. Isn't it just great how we can thank the market collapse for lowering our gas prices. So this administration and congress / senate will pass reforms that fall short of real stronger regulation needed to tame these antics. They leave the door open for more of the same.

But hey, there are more important things to talk about by the ignorant than a very simple and clear set of actions by a very few financial organizations worth trillions that are playing games for just their own profit with our economy. Acorn, if this prez is the 'Anti-Christ'. They have priorities...