Kevin Drum on Oil Speculation. There was a Commodity Futures Trading Commission report that private Swiss energy conglomerate Vitol which was classified as an oil trader was really a speculator. "at one point in July, the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange." The CFTC "now reports that financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81 percent of the oil contracts on NYMEX, a far bigger share than had previously been stated by the agency."
"This still isn't conclusive evidence one way or the other, but it's certainly suggestive that there have been a few big financial players helping to drive prices up in the past few months. Supply constraints are still the main culprit for long-term price increases, but all the same it's beginning to look like it wouldn't hurt to tighten up the oversight of the oil futures market a wee bit."
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