As I'm an equity trader and don 't follow the derivatives; where may I find the data that supports your claim that they are "exponentially higher..." Thanks, DS
the fact is there would be no reason to excersize all those futures. I don't know about you but I dont have a stockroom in my house to store barrells of oil. The type of chaos that you are describing is just not going to happen.
321energy article mentions GSCI reduced weighting of gasoline : "CONTROL OF ENERGY & INDUSTRY RESPONSE (by Jim Willie) The "dynamic duo" JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are running rampant, making money like bandits, coming and going, in market sectors which rise or fall. Or are they "evil twins" instead? They have a partner in the USGovt and immunity from investigation, audit, and prosecution. What has this country come to? A laundry list of questionable market practices and government activities can be cited. Start with the GSax commodity index (GSCI) whose unleaded gasoline weight was reduced from 8.45% to 2.3% without warning or justification. Fully $100 billion is invested in indexed commodity funds tied to the GSCI, managed by fund managers, brokers, and individuals. They were forced to sell a lot of gasoline contracts to abide by enforced weightings. Let's be real clear. It would be great if I could put my personal $30 thousand short position in place on a trade, then change an index weightings, then wink to the Dept of Defense on selling a scad of crude oil from inventory, then pull a string at EIA on a weekly story on reduced national energy demand, then sell the heck out of positions which my client hedge funds hold (knowing their important support lines), then to sit back and count my $100k profit a month later. Wow! Isn't it great that the USGovt has JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs as partners to protect our freedom and to ensure market vitality? This media debate on the realistic belief of one third of the public harboring suspicions of election engineering in the energy market is interesting. THEY OPENLY DISCUSS EVERY IMPORTANT FACTOR EXCEPT JPM AND GSAX!!! The USGovt Dept of Energy spokesman has actually admitted that oil drawn from the Strategic Petro Reserve during the Hurricane Katrina is not to be replaced yet. Check section 161, item g2B of the law, with stipulates that a drawdown cannot persist "for more than 60 days with respect to each shortage." Since when does law interfere with the current Administration when on a mission? Heck, it is election season just one month away! That is motive enough, isn't it? Gasoline is more domestically controlled for price, so criticism of any manipulation with election expedience as motive would be domestic, if at all. The energy complex is inter-related, with contracts for crude oil, heating oil, diesel, gasoline, and natural gas intertwined. GSax set off a chain reaction. Oh yes, the US Military is rumored to have sold a staggering amount of diesel fuel. Did they accumulate over 18 months only to discharge surplus prior to the election? Coordination between the USGovt and US Military is easy, with the dynamic duo in partnership. This is not idle speculation, but engrained collusion. The largest energy consumer in the world, as a single corporate or institutional entity, is the US Military. Their data is held secret, but when they enter a market, their activity can be detected, and is often the subject of rumor mills. Research has traditionally maintained the grapevine as 75% reliable. Toss in some reduced EIA energy demand forecasts, lower OPEC demand forecasts, and some games on firm OPEC output, and presto, the energy market declines further. Bear in mind that OPEC grossly exaggerates its oil reserves, struggles to maintain output levels, while the Alaskan slope has interrupted supply lines. Saudi oil production is down from 9.5 million bbl/day last year to 9.1 or 9.2 million bbl/day now, not publicly trumpeted by any means. They are under strain. As one paints the ultimate reality, the market action points to the current reality. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are having a field day (rather, two months) forcing hedge funds into liquidation on their heavily stressed energy positions. Amaranth is not the only fund in the middle of a death experience. Expert professionals inside the two adept firms are in competition with young hedge fund managers, some young and inexperienced. The Amaranth story is not isolated. The wealthy do not relish public displays of their investment failures anymore than their fund managers do. Motherrock of ABN Amro was the previous story. Of 9000 hedge funds managing $1300 billion, are we to witness only a handful of failures? Methinks not. Many typical spread trades are anchored with USTreasury Bonds, which must see buyback upon liquidation (the short cover). Thus we saw a strong USTBond rally until last week, the implied beneficiary. So the USGovt applauds the efforts by their twin knights of the Oval Office, JPM and GSax as they force exposed over-leveraged hedge fund managers. This pressure aids the bond rally, which aids the stock rally. Perhaps the current phase of the liquidation has ended. See the minor bond selloff this week."
You can start at open interest and compare it to the real supply. Open interest you can get through any options/futures broker that gives access to the particular products. NYMEX and CME have their data also. None of it is the full data but close enough. REAL data, meaning the actual supply out there and REAL futures agreements between suppliers you have to research. A few sites dedicated to commodities investing actually have this data. Gold is the more manipulated one, the actual gold supply is 5-10% of the derivative market on gold. Some have been blaming the pull back in gold on Central Bank selling, but that's nonsense as the central banks have a miniscule supply in comparison to the whole derivatives market. It was just hedge funds On the money. It's the world of paper pushers with geopolitical interests as icing on the cake.