I was? Where was that? I think you have me confused with someone else. EMR made a point that the Bin Laden news was busllshit and Oil was not going to be effected. I said seeing that EMR is clueless oil would head to 90. Oil did then drop about 11 bucks over the next few days. It wasn't a "trading call" as I never come on here and say what I am doing....no reason for that. But my point that EMR is clueless was proven. As far as me cheerleading the SP going up like a newbie.... I believe you are mistaken. Been trading way too long for that shit.
No, it's the taxpayer who picked up the tab. Not the "Government". Second, the Government doesn't give a shit about the stability of the system, only in so far as it keeps them elected and allows them to buy votes with taxpayer dollars. IF the Government truly cared about the stability of markets and value of the dollar, we would still enjoy a gold standard. The savings and loan crisis (and bailout) would have not occurred, nor offshoring, nor the LTCM bailout, nor the Nasdaq bubble (and bailout), nor the housing bubble (and bailout), nor ~1% interest rates for the past 10 years. Nor would the deficit (or debt) be at catastrophic levels. Moral hazard and the concept of "too big to fail" is now institutionalized in our economic lexicon. This will lead to even bigger (and more disastrous) risk-taking in the future, all thanks to Government intervention of the past. But again, apparently we have nothing to fear because the Government is doing "everything it can" to "preserve the stability of markets". What a crock of shit. Government looks out for itself, enriches its Corporate buddies, and when they get in a jam, they get bailed out with YOUR money. That's the system. It's soft Corporate Fascism. As far as oil, yes, you make a fair point. When currencies depreciate, hard assets (like commodities) become a proxy store of value. This is a law of economics. Keep in mind, not everyone is financially illiterate. Smart money understand the value of hard assets (like oil) cannot be destroyed as it can't be printed like the Government does with fiat currency. What's going in the oil market is a repricing away from fundamentals (demand-supply) towards dollar debasement. This is the way it's always been. Right now, it's politically expedient to throw speculators under the bus because most voters are stupid. They're dumb. They don't understand the relationship between money supply and prices. The real culprits you want to bitch at are: 1) The Federal Reserve 2) US Treasury 3) US Congress Those 3 institutions are entirely responsible for the aggregate quantity of dollars in circulation, current and future. THEY determine commodity prices by printing too much money (and passing budgets that print (or borrow) too much money). Now if you want to curb long-term speculation in the oil market, fine. But smart money will just shift their money into natural gas. Or brent crude. Or copper. Or gold. Or wheat. Then what? Ban all speculation in those contracts too? Ban all speculation in futures, altogether? Or how about we just ban those speculators who are betting on dollar debasement/appreciation? And not those who bet on underlying fundamentals (supply and demand)? But then, how do we identify one from the other, beforehand? How do we know who's betting on fundamentals and who's betting on dollar depreciation? Perhaps you can answer that for us, Sherlock.
speculators are the reason for the orderly markets, not the problem. You're right to some degree; I don't blame the gov't for wanting to do something to try and bring down prices. It is bad for the economy/country. I have no problem with the concept of regulation. But this simply would not work. It would backfire and make us more susceptible to the laws of supply and demand and throw prices more out of whack. it's Futures 101. This is what the futures markets are for. You don't have to take my word for it. But do you really want to base your position on what a senator says? Go find 3 or 4 respected economists and see if you can find their position and rationale and see who makes more sense
If a futures contract is functioning properly, the opportunity for arbitrage should prevent the above scenario. That is, if the price of oil futures goes to say $300 and the cash price is $200, traders would buy the cash, sell the futures and deliver against the short position. Called convergence. It devines a successful futures contract. However, so much capital has been thrown at commodities that some of the contracts have become challenged in terms of a hedge. The wheat contract is a perfect example. Interestingly, it is not government regulation that has addressed the issue for wheat, but the exchange. The CME has increased storage rates to a level that it is extremely difficult to profit from a long futures position that is maintatined for say a year or more. Regarding cornering of markets. Refered to as a "squeeze". For a squeeze to be effective, the participant must be long both futures and cash or physical. As a local, I often traded as a market maker. The closest I came to squeezing a market was being long 50% of the nearby 2 weeks proir to delivery. That was at a time before the COT was published so the market was unable to discern that half the open interest was a spec position. This fact alone enabled me to profit from that position. Regulation and the COT has made it virtually impossible to squeeze a market in the true sense of the word. Regard, local
I saw the post where you thought I was cheerleading. It wasn't cheerleading at all. My point was that this clown EMR has been saying the world is gonna end....mkts heading south fast. He has been saying this for probably 170 SP points. Claims he was "in the know" and all that bs. After he trashed me I was just reminding him ...just happened to be he decided to post to me as SP's were up there at 1371. Not cheerleading at all. It's just comical how the clown trashes me Crude at 112.50 ......telling me I have no idea what I am talking about...and it drops 11 bucks over the next few days. I'm telling you..between this and his short the SP call from before I really think he is turning into an indicator worth trading off of..lol.
Oil has gotten close to 90 rather fast EMR. Too bad you didn't get some of your "clients" money to short Crude when I mentioned it. Dropped about 17 buck since. You could have been a hero amongst the 90 year olds you cold call to sell piles of dirt in Texas you claim have oil under them.
Unbelievable. The amount of oil available for export has been falling for over half a decade, but people are convinced supply and demand aren't the driving force in ramping prices. Simply amazing.
Supply and demand ARE the driving prices but they're controlled by OPEC. If they want high oil prices there's no stopping them. It is an incentives question. OPEC wants the world's money. So they keep supply low to generate maximum profit per barrel. They have no reason to give away their oil. Why would they intentionally lose money?