Stocks fall after oil passes $132, inventories drop

Stocks fall after oil passes $132, inventories drop

biz.yahoo.com

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street extended its sharp decline Wednesday as oil prices stubbornly climbed to new record levels, keeping investors' inflation jitters alive. The Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 100 points.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I would like to know who exactly these speculators are. I am beginning to think there is more to this rise than greed. I wonder if these are the same speculators who have kept the precious metals market fairly stable and bought up massive amounts of metal back in March.

Something very weird is going on with food, oil, and metal speculation. Something that has me very worried.



biz.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

who are the speculators???

your guess is as good as mines as to who the really "big" players are, but as for the rest of the speculators, many are simply people like you and me who see this as their chance to profit on product on the rise. If I had the big bucks, I too would be buying oil and gold everytime it dips.

Also with all the headlines and seeming "acceptance" of the worst is yet to come, it's only natural for people to turn to commodities such as oils, metals and grains to put their funds into as a "safety net".

[edit on 5-21-2008 by worldwatcher]

I keep reading and hearing that these prices are effected by global trends and projections.Events like hurricanes and talks of war and so on.I mean are the markets so fragile that someone even mentioning some sort of action against another country can cause oil to rise in price? If this is the case then Israel coming out and saying it's new information on Iran says they will a nuke in a year or less could be causing the new rise to $132 per barrel.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS

Something very weird is going on with food, oil, and metal speculation. Something that has me very worried.

A succinct analysis and a valid fear my friend.

I am at a total loss to understand where the finance is coming from for ALL the materials markets and indexes to be bullish.

Where are these speculators getting their lines of credit to massively forward purchase oil, food, gold, most metals, coffee, rice etc etc etc. Everything is rising in price.

Or is it though? Another option is possibly in play: Is it really the visible effect of the death of the dollar?

$100 per oil barrell would have been a ludicrous proposition five years ago. But now the Euro is waiting in the flanks to usurp the dollar's hegemony.

A dollar has never been so worthless, its buying power has never been so low. Consequently prices have never been so high.

Here's an update:

Its now over $133 a barrel for oil.
biz.yahoo.com...

Something is just not adding up here.

Yes the dollar has devalued but not enough to bring us to this.

Yes there are supply issues but not enough to bring us to this.

Someone is pushing this Oil and Food Bubble hard while suppressing the same kind of Bubble in the Metals market.

Back in March some very big money took the Silver market by the throat. This happened after silver had reached a record over $21 an ounce. For a week almost all online sources of metals like APMEX were shut down, depleted of silver and even raised minimum amounts to prices average buyers simply could not afford. At the same time the US mint temporarily halted the minting of the US Silver Eagles. After that week of craziness silver has hovered between 16 and 18 dollars an ounce. Even when the dollar devalues or regains value it has hovered at that point.

Something very odd is going on.

There is definitely some manipulation going on, but the largest factor in oil prices right now is the literal tanking of the US Dollar that nobody's talking about. I just looked at the exchange rates on Yahoo and in 2001 the US Dollar was worth 1.17 Euro. Today it's trading at 0.63 Euro... almost a 50% drop in value for the dollar and believe me, you don't want to look at that graph if you're a Bush supporter. It's the single most damning piece of evidence that this government has driven this economy into the ground from the moment they came into office.

If the dollar had the same value as in 2001, a barrel of oil would cost $70 today.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


It wasnt Bush's "fault" so much as the Euro's.

Until the creation of the Euro there was no alternative to the dollar, so hegemony could continue unchallenged.

Since the Euro was created, and for ever more, you shall see the dollar slip and slide against it further and further until the level corrects in regards to the true purchasing power of a dollar. Sadly we all stand to lose massive amounts of money from such a course, as it will trigger a massive financial meltdown. Im not exactly sure why this is the case, but Im sure anyone who has studied economics will probably be able to enlighten you further.

I agree that oil prices are high here because the dollar is down.What most people are not seeing is the huge rise in scrap metal prices.A huge precentage of scrap metal from this country is shipped to China.We are cutting our own throats selling our scrap steel.This country may run on oil but it is built on steel.Without the steel industry we have fallen from an industrial leader in the world to a subserviant green grocery colony to the rest of the world.What do we really export other than food stuffs?

This reminds me of the good old days when economists said that our economy couldn't afford $60/barrel of oil and would collapse if it ever hit such levels. 2007 seems like so long ago.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


www.abovetopsecret.com...

My thread on Economic Misery. I couldn't understand how the economy even held up after $120 .. seriously.. people would have to be retarded NOT to believe inflation is through the roof!

I am curious as to why the petroleum prices are rising. Here's a link to show where our petroleum in the US comes from.

www.eia.doe.gov...

Given that what would possibly drive up our prices?

reply to post by Christian Voice


Looks like we need to take over Canada!

Originally posted by worldwatcher
who are the speculators???

I do belive they are calling the speculators the ones who are trading in the now UNREGULATED electronic exchanges.

This is a good article to help people understand how speculation got its foot hold in the energy market. You can thank Enron and Congress!

‘Perhaps 60% of today’s oil price is pure speculation’

I also started a thread on this article HERE!

[edit on 5/21/2008 by Keyhole]

Originally posted by Christian Voice
I am curious as to why the petroleum prices are rising. ?

That's a good question CV. If oil prices flattened here, or actually began to correct (not saying they will), what could cause average pump prices to continue to rise into the summer? The issue is refinery utilization/output. High oil prices, and stable gasoline inventories related to a drop in demand...have temporarily eliminated the profit incentive for refiners.

Best described in this missive by Adam Hamilton.

FWIW: Net oil production/exports peaked in 2005 (2-slide chart).

This is the 'crude' fundamental driving oil prices: Global demand crossed global production three years ago. The congressional - media war on speculation, is nothing short of an election year witch-hunt. We have developing nations hording food...oil producing nations hoarding oil...and congress threatening OPEC and the CFTC. All of these gubmn't interventions are doomed to result in future market dislocations...and even higher prices. Word.

This is the 'crude' fundamental driving oil prices: Global demand crossed global production three years ago. The congressional - media war on speculation, is nothing short of an election year witch-hunt. We have developing nations hording food...oil producing nations hoarding oil...and congress threatening OPEC and the CFTC. All of these gubmn't interventions are doomed to result in future market dislocations...and even higher prices. Word.

History will tell us this is the "perfect storm" for the makings of a World War.

Perhaps when oil surpasses $200 a barrel and the citizens are pushed into the streets to starve .. Congress will decide a war of aggression to out right conquer oil fields across the world will look like a good idea.

I think we could take Brazil.

One oil ceo actually tried to claim before congress that he was just an average Joe too.

I didn't know whether to throw something at the TV set or pee myself laughing.

The more this goes on I can only speculate that in light of the screwing Enron gave Califorinia with their phony electrical shortages to run up prices that this is something of the same sort of thing... they are allowing prices to rise to put the screws on Congress and the states to open up reserves previously unavailable to them.

Some factors to think about,...

A ton of 'speculation' money is stampeding around different markets right now, to the tune of trillions. The source of this money is what formerly powered the real estate derivitives market. Since nobody really is interested in investing in mortgage backed securities anymore for the time being, this money has to go somewhere like; grain futures like corn and rice, the metals (although the shift out of this already happenned), and anything that will make a profit on a falsly produced psuedo sector bull market in a contract investment. The rush in, followed by the profit taking rush out. How long this goes on I could not fashion to imagine. But untill the interest for this money returns to mortgage backed securities again, banks will be scrambling to find uses of this money to keep them afloat. (not to mention that mortgage rates will have difficulty dropping much more until demand rises again for the investment of mortgage backed securities by banks and investors/speculators. Its a supply and demand thing that drives rates, and right now there isnt much demand and as a result, higher rates have to be offerred so investors in these securities remain at least a little interested in buying them.)

As someone stated before, the price of oil here in the USA, is directly related to the value of the buck. Until the value stabilizes, prices aint goin' down. You can have Congress demand answers all you want from the oil companies because of their big profits, but untill the dollar can BUY more oil (internationally, and as a per-bbl value), its gonna cost more dollars for the same old oil every day.

[edit on 22-5-2008 by smirkley]

IEA worried over oil supply
By ANGELA CHARLTON – 2 hours ago

PARIS (AP) — A leading global energy monitor said Thursday it is worried that demand for oil will outstrip world supply and is preparing a landmark revision of its closely watched forecasts. Full Text

When this IEA depletion study is released in November, the results could literally blow the lid off oil. Just the concern expressed in this news release is enough to support the current uptrend. Crude has traded above $100 for about 2 months now. Each time we have a pull-back ($6 or so, two weeks ago), buying pressure appears...evidence that oil dependent countries are in all-out competition for available supply. If this trend was primarily driven by speculation...specs would begin taking profits at the first sign of each stall or rollover...leading to price volatility we simply haven't witnessed yet. Some point & figure charts show a price objective of $160bbl on the current up-leg