The whole thing was and is a gigantic bubble. That's gonna mean havoc for the Canadian stock market (TSX)
Bubble? Where are the stockpiles? Where?? The physical supply and demand balance has never been tighter. Every other bursting bubble has been accompanied by excess inventories of products produced. Whether it be technology (2000), houses (recently), debt (recently), or gold (1980s). At the end of the tech bubble, firms were literally giving away free tech gear to anyone who wanted it (I built a couple computers with all the freebies that were being handed out at trade shows and even on the web if you filled out a form)-- and then booking such giveaways as 'goodwill' and reporting earnings against such. Warehouses were full of Cisco routers and other tech gear that was eventually liquidated on eBay for pennies on the dollar. Today, we have warehouses of debt that nobody wants. As the Lehman CDS settlements show, its been liquidated at fire sale prices and maybe someone down the line will find some value in it. The real bubble is in debt, and not in oil firms that are literally digging up half of Northern Alberta just to satisfy rapidly diminishing supplies from Mexico.