Whether or not speculation is indeed causing a bubble you still can't compare commodities to stock. If a stock is pulled way above fair value just to crash a couple months later the world economy isn't destroyed with it. The same is not true for commodities. People around the world literally starve when bubbles like this are produced in the commodities market. You can't compare the two. Its funny that the stock market is more regulated than the commodities market when you look at what the two exchanges trade.
I agree 1,000,000,000% No one is going to starve because of a bubble or manipulation in a penny stock. There are people in third world countries that are literally going die because of what the commodities speculators are doing. Again, there is no longer any relationship between the economic value of commodities and what they sell for at these casinos.
How interesting! Consumers and producers are invited to the meeting but not speculators! Oh and by the way, I think the Saudis know more about oil fundamentals than you or I! http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aN1J5J7AqP5U&refer=home Oil Falls as Saudi Arabia Calls for Producer-Consumer Meeting By Mark Shenk June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell more than $2 a barrel as Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, called for a meeting of oil producing and consuming nations to discuss how to deal with record prices. ``The increase in prices isn't justified in terms of market fundamentals,'' the Saudi government said today in a statement distributed by the Saudi Press Agency.
I applaud your humanity and concern for others, millions of "others" whom we will never know or meet. Somehow others on these threads, whether benefitting from the oil price speculation or not, have lost their love for mankind, in their callous comments and nasty attitides; comments like: 1) "they were all realestate speculators, and should lose their mortgages" regarding the high rates of foreclosures as if somehow there were no real families with real hopes, jobs and dreams getting abused and caught up in this fiasco 2) "free markets should go without regulation" as if what we have been seeing is without manipulation, and supply and demand really justify what's happening. Frankly, I am glad that Saudi Arabia is taking some step to speak up for true demand and supplies and force some truth to the marketplace through some form of disclosure, better than the US prognosticators are doing... what I don't understand is why they aren't more concerned with (the US brokerages) the negativity of their actions. I read on another thread how they are starting to blame all the names that have a certain ethnic background for these problems. I hope we never get to those levels again....
All these speculators are just pushing prices around on the margins. Do they have the capacity to move prices one way or the other on any given day... yes of course. The underlying story is explosive demand for food in energy in the developing world, and inefficient and wasteful policies in the first world that have failed to prepare for this. We can shut down the cme and ice, prices will still keep going up up up baby
OPEC chief appeals for calm over oil Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:20am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri on Tuesday appealed for calm, saying the record-high oil price was unbearable and did not reflect any shortage of supply in the market. "The situation is unbearable as far as we are concerned. I want to say, there is no shortage now and in the future." Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter and OPEC's most influential member, said on Monday it would soon call for a meeting to discuss what it called unjustified rises in prices. "We are not happy with the current level of price for one reason. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals," he said. "Speculators are playing a big role in high oil prices.
It's amazing how everybody cries poor at the high price of gasoline/oil, but few looked forward and did anything about the prospect... US Gummint, the biggest a-holes, included. They could test this notion by raising the futures margin to say $40,000 per contract. After forced sales by the more highly leveraged, the markets would return to the present lofty levels, if correct. Personally, I think you are right. Boon Pickens believes only a world wide recession which reduces the demand for oil will trim the price significantly. Perhaps the high price of oil will trigger it??
Gazprom Sees Oil at $250 in `Foreseeable Future' (Update2) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=axAhoXMxHJOc