THE Speculators Thread pt 1 (merged) Archived

[Skinner]

The Saudis have declared that $100 is a fair price and the price right now is $106. BFD.

Whack away, fellas, but the rest of the world isn't freaking out about energy.

Nope, they aren't. But why would they? These people watching day to day variations must be doing it as a hobby, it certainly doesn't have much meaning to anyone but a day trader.

I think I understand the part about how peak oilers confuse price changes with evidence of peak, but they really can't mean it.

[americandream]

Day trading (speculation) is largely technical. After all, what the long term prospects are for oil hardly bothers someone who is trying to catch a day's move, whatever way it chooses to go. Position trading (week or longer) tends to depend on fundamentals and involves investor (not speculator) money.

[Skinner]

Day trading (speculation) is largely technical.

I have no doubt about that one.

After all, what the long term prospects are for oil hardly bothers someone who is trying to catch a day's move, whatever way it chooses to go. Position trading (week or longer) tends to depend on fundamentals and involves investor (not speculator) money.

More power to you if you can keep up with that level of market changes. I'm a working man, the risk in what you do is way beyond what I want my paycheck to depend on.

[yeahbut]

Shortonsense, Xenophobe, DoomerUnite each alias was ironic and somewhat self-deprecating. I wonder what Skinner means? Does he want us to flay him?

What are you talking about?

We'll always know, shorty. Your essential character seeps thru no matter how you try to hide it

And what does that say about you, that you lie about who you are? Why should anyone listen to a word you have to say, when your modus operandi here is fundamentally one of dishonesty? Not a platform that anyone with an ounce of integrity would wish to operate from.

[pstarr]

We'll always know, shorty. Your essential character seeps thru no matter how you try to hide it

And what does that say about you, that you lie about who you are? Why should anyone listen to a word you have to say, when your modus operandi here is fundamentally one of dishonesty? Not a platform that anyone with an ounce of integrity would wish to operate from.

Yeah. When Carlhole and his computer can create an AI system that identifies a Shorty/Skinny, then I will believe the Singularity has arrived. Until such time I will have to depend on simple common sense. And the sniff test. You know what I always say: "If it smells like a troll then pepper spray the bunghole."

[americandream]

More power to you if you can keep up with that level of market changes. I'm a working man, the risk in what you do is way beyond what I want my paycheck to depend on.

Yes. And you need to acknowledge your limits rather than barge into an area you know fook all about. All you do is confuse and that pisses me off when I see folks who don't even know the difference between speculating and investing wittering on loosely with those terms.

[Skinner]

We'll always know, shorty. Your essential character seeps thru no matter how you try to hide it

Who is shorty? And what are you talking about?

[Skinner]

Yes. And you need to acknowledge your limits rather than barge into an area you know fook all about. All you do is confuse and that pisses me off when I see folks who don't even know the difference between speculating and investing wittering on loosely with those terms.

Hey..this conversation started out as a way to figure out cheap oil....I've got no beef with your day job, in part because I don't care how you make your money. Fortunately, I can just stick my money into some trend tracking fund, and since March of 2009 it has done better than gold. Now THAT kind of understanding I like!

[thuja]

We'll always know, shorty. Your essential character seeps thru no matter how you try to hide it

Who is shorty?

Your soul mate.

[americandream]

Yes. And you need to acknowledge your limits rather than barge into an area you know fook all about. All you do is confuse and that pisses me off when I see folks who don't even know the difference between speculating and investing wittering on loosely with those terms.

Hey..this conversation started out as a way to figure out cheap oil....I've got no beef with your day job, in part because I don't care how you make your money. Fortunately, I can just stick my money into some trend tracking fund, and since March of 2009 it has done better than gold. Now THAT kind of understanding I like!

And I explained how speculators, investors and markets work, including oil. Now there, you have learnt a thing or two and will no longer be stupid enough to argue that trends which extend over months and years are being driven by speculators who work within a day and at most a few days.

edit: In any event, the oil price crash which was coincidental on the sub-prime crisis had more to say about investment money being pulled for use elsewhere and in other investments gone bad than in supply demand issues. Of course, that was pretty evident to many of us who watched the moves. As the investment pools once again gather themselves, it's hardly surprising that they will return to oil.

[eXpat]

We'll always know, shorty. Your essential character seeps thru no matter how you try to hide it

Who is shorty?

Your soul mate.

[AdTheNad]

price change %
Brent Crude Oil Futures $/barrel $120.66 -$3.32 -2.7%

Based on this unscientific observation, speculators can affect prices by about 3%.

That's the futures price. What happened to the spot price?

Edit - OK, looks like spot price fell as well, does anyone have a good link to a graph of spot prices with more detail than the BBC one, that seems to just show daily price movements.

[mos6507]

economists such as Jeff Rubin do by the way

Jeff Rubin was the architect of "peak oil caused the credit crisis" meme. That doesn't mean it holds water.

discussing whether a speculative real estate bubble popped because of PO or not doesn't matter that much in the end.

I think the more 2008 recedes into the distance and the more peak oil begins to express itself more clearly, that's true. The worst is yet to come.

Also agree with pstarr on speculation having very little influence on oil price.
(or that the only ones that truly can speculate are OPEC)
Speculation and bubbles truly works for assets, not for hardly storable commodities

That's not really a very detailed response to the articles and things which have been shared that actually go into some detail on how oil speculators game a system that people think can't be gamed. Even if their influence is overstated by those who don't want to accept peak oil, that influence IS a factor nonetheless, and you only have to point to the tanking oil prices in the fall of 2008 to see how this works in both directions. That backwardation was not just demand destruction. It was the popping of the oil speculation bubble. Oil prices are therefore more of a sin wave obscuring what is a more modestly increasing oil price.

To continually get suckered into "this is the big one!" mentality on the crest of every peak of the sin wave is Boy Who Cried Wolf at its worst.