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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (405245)	8/8/2008 12:05:46 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572208

But the speculation argument is overblown -- people just trading oil futures (as in speculating with stock options) is a relatively small part of the market activity. I think the Congressional Dems have made the argument that that's what's driving oil prices, but practically every expert on the subject has either strongly doubted or outright disagreed with that claim. Of course not every expert is saying that. In fact, there are some who want all margin trading lifted for oil to see which traders are real and which aren't.

To: i-node who wrote (405245)	8/8/2008 1:00:06 PM
From: HPilot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572208

My point is that the biggest oil future traders, are the same ones buying tankers of oil and producing gasoline from it. They know better than any one if buying a future may be cheaper than buying spot oil when the contract is due. Or if selling them is better than selling the oil. So if they are speculating and driving future prices up, it would be little different than buying oil and driving prices up. At the end of the day they need the oil and they have to meet the demand. Its that demand thats the real price driver. And the real kicker is that the demand is no longer the USA market but the Asia market.