Why gas prices dropped
Trust us. It wasn't OPEC or Republicans trying to influence midterm elections.
"Whatever you want to call it - speculators, fast money, hot money - a big part of the drop in crude that we've seen this year is because of selling by hedge funds," says Merrill Lynch technical analyst Mary Ann Bartels.
Hedge fund speculation and sales explain drop gas prices
(Fortune Magazine)
"If the recent plunge in gas prices is the result of a conspiracy by President George W. Bush to help the Republicans retain control of Congress, as 42 percent of Americans believe, according to one Gallup poll, a lot of Wall Streeters wish they'd been in on the plot.
So what really drove prices down - if not an Oliver Stone-worthy scenario involving the Commander-in-Chief, the House of Saud and Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson cajoling his cronies at Goldman Sachs to sink the crude market?
By late summer, hedge funds and other investors had poured billions into long positions in oil, gasoline, natural gas and the rest of what traders call the 'energy complex,' all betting on a replay of the severe 2005 hurricane season that sent prices soaring in the wake of Katrina and Rita. But one day after oil reached a monthly high of $76.98 a barrel on Aug. 7, government meteorologists downgraded their hurricane forecast and cautioned that a repeat of 2005 was 'unlikely.'
That announcement, combined with the end of the summer driving season and a recalibration of the Goldman Sachs (Charts) commodity index that reduced the weighting of gasoline, prompted speculators to head for the exits even faster than they'd piled in." Read on.
"Whatever you want to call it - speculators, fast money, hot money - a big part of the drop in crude that we've seen this year is because of selling by hedge funds," says Merrill Lynch technical analyst Mary Ann Bartels.
Hedge fund speculation and sales explain drop gas prices
(Fortune Magazine)
"If the recent plunge in gas prices is the result of a conspiracy by President George W. Bush to help the Republicans retain control of Congress, as 42 percent of Americans believe, according to one Gallup poll, a lot of Wall Streeters wish they'd been in on the plot.
So what really drove prices down - if not an Oliver Stone-worthy scenario involving the Commander-in-Chief, the House of Saud and Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson cajoling his cronies at Goldman Sachs to sink the crude market?
By late summer, hedge funds and other investors had poured billions into long positions in oil, gasoline, natural gas and the rest of what traders call the 'energy complex,' all betting on a replay of the severe 2005 hurricane season that sent prices soaring in the wake of Katrina and Rita. But one day after oil reached a monthly high of $76.98 a barrel on Aug. 7, government meteorologists downgraded their hurricane forecast and cautioned that a repeat of 2005 was 'unlikely.'
That announcement, combined with the end of the summer driving season and a recalibration of the Goldman Sachs (Charts) commodity index that reduced the weighting of gasoline, prompted speculators to head for the exits even faster than they'd piled in." Read on.
posted by HeavyHanded at
9:36 PM
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