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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (15284)	5/20/2004 3:39:01 PM
From: The Ox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95616

We've been seeing these types of reports for years. I used to follow the oil industry closer then the semis and I've been reading these dire predictions for a long time. The basics of the oil markets are not as closely tied to supplies as one might think. In my opinion, the main influences on the price of oil (or nat.gas) are the traders, not the supply and demand metrics. One look at how the prices were manipulated during the California gas mania gives one a clue. While there were shortage issues, it was the traders who created the astronomical prices - clawing and gouging the citizens. Now, the idiots in the California government created the proper environment to get raped by the traders. They had the opportunity to lock in long term contracts around $2.50/mcf a few years before the disaster struck and those in charge were afraid to lock in the prices (since they thought NG prices were going lower). I think we currently have the traders running up the crude oil prices, with the basic approval of our President. We are currently buying and storing oil in the strategic reserve at substantially inflated prices and this is just another way of keeping the upward pressure on oil prices. Most investors would sell while the prices are high and wait to buy when the prices are low...but not our current administration. Forgive the political slant but these are the realities of the situation we find ourselves in.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (15284)	5/21/2004 9:03:12 AM
From: The Ox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95616

OT: link borrowed from the BDBBR thread on SI: news.scotsman.com Doomsters are wrong - there's plenty of oil BILL JAMIESON IN A terror-prone world, apprehension is the new fever and the state we’re in. It feeds on any new information, no matter that it may be contrary to yesterday’s alarm and panic. Financial markets are now in the grip of Apprehension Fever. Not long ago, the great fear was global deflation. Now, stock markets are in retreat on worries that inflation is back. Only months ago we fretted over America’s jobless recovery. Now investors fret over employment numbers that look too buoyant. Last month, the big worry was China’s booming economy driving up commodity prices. Now, we fear a China slump. Interest rates? Yesterday they were too low. Today, the prospect of rising rates has sent fixed-interest markets into a spin. Among environmental doomsters, the default worry has been the fast rate of energy depletion and low prices for fossil fuels. These have stunted the growth of alternative energy sources, and threatened energy scarcity unless we cover the land with wind farms. Yesterday, the new panic in the markets was of oil prices surging back towards the record highs seen earlier this week. In the US, there is talk of oil scarcity as the so-called "motoring season" gets under way. And pressure is growing on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to relieve supply shortages by stepping up output when it next meets in Beirut on 3 June. Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have been pleading for higher output quotas. At times like these, it pays to sort out real causes for apprehension from the fakes. [SNIP] [SNIP]Two other factors should help cool our apprehension on oil. The first is that the price is denominated in dollars, and on currency markets over the past 18 months there has been a sharp fall in the dollar. Thus, in dollar terms, Brent crude may have risen by 30 per cent over the past year. But in sterling terms, the increase has been about 20 per cent. In addition, the world economy overall is much less energy-intensive than it was 30 years ago. None of this means that we will escape pain if prices do stay high. And poor or vulnerable economies (Africa, southern Asia) stand to be hit the hardest. George Magnus, global economy watcher at UBS, predicts that global output will be 0.1 per cent lower this year and 0.4 per cent lower next were oil prices to end the year above $32. What is helping to keep the price up is a push in the US to replenish strategic oil stockpiles. While inventories are rising, they are still 4 per cent lower than a year ago. That may not seem much. But overall demand is running some 3 per cent higher year on year. Hence the pressure piling on OPEC to announce a rise in output quotas of 1.5 million barrels a day when it meets next month. The cartel counter-argues that this will make little difference to prices. It is already pumping out two million barrels a day in excess of the official 23.5 million barrels per day limit. But while the physical impact of a lift in output may be small, the psychological effect could be considerable, taking the speculative froth out of the futures market. Indeed, anything that helps counteract the perception of oil supply vulnerability would help. And as we know only too well, in the Age of Apprehension, small gestures can have big effects. We have a political problem, and a security problem. But we are most definitely not running out of oil.