That's a real shift in demand, a change in investor/trader psychology, or both, but it isn't market manipulation, and isn't traders deciding and consciously setting a price.
I never said it was manipulation, traders are definitely deciding and consciously setting a price, how else would it arise, clearly they don't all have the same price in mind, that's what makes the market.
You seem to be conflating three things that are really different.
1 - Market manipulation and cornering.
See the above.
2 - Speculation
I did not speak of speculation, I spoke of excessive speculation.
3 - "Animal spirits"/"irrational exuberence"/"bubbles" in the market.
Yes. Excessive speculation.
Also I don't see the current oil price as being all that irrational? Do you?
Haven't yet made that discernment.
Why?
Cause I haven't really thought about it.
Well that's some people's objective...
Excuse me, that's what that was about, reducing consumption.
Crackdown urged on speculation in commodities markets
By Diana B. Henriques
Thursday, June 12, 2008
iht.com
In Washington, financial speculators have a fat target on their backs.
They are being blamed for high gasoline prices, soaring grocery bills and volatile commodity markets, and lawmakers are lashing out at market regulators for not cracking down on them more vigorously.
"You study it, but you don't act against this incredible increase in speculation," Senator Carl Levin complained to a senior official of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at a recent Senate hearing. "Unless the CFTC is going to act against speculation, we don't have a cop on the beat."
Just this week, Senator Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, said he was working on a proposal to ban large institutional investors from the commodity markets entirely. The same day, the administration of President George W. Bush approved another Senate proposal for the creation of a federal interagency task force to investigate commodity speculation. At least four public hearings have explored the topic in just the past two months, and Lieberman has scheduled another session on June 24.
This escalating rhetoric against speculators is starting to worry people with years of knowledge about how commodity markets work. Because without speculators, they note, these markets simply do not work at all. |
