Dr. No

Not All Commodity ETFs Are Created Equal

"Either oil is overpriced or natural gas is undervalued." This assumes a somewhat fixed offering and demand of oil to gas. Could be that all of a sudden more gas (or expectation thereof) is available (and gas got cheaper by more supply and same demand) and you now move from a 8.6 to 18.1 ratio.

Oil, Gas, Electric Cars, the Market and the Economy

Muddling Invester: I love your calcualtion and reality check. So how does the electro-magnetic field look like around a thigh-thick conductor at 200V and 4000Amps?

tyklakewalker: Last time I checked sugar cane gorws only in Florida, Louisiana and Hawaii domestically. We should replace middle east oil dependence with brazil ethanol dependence ??? Further: You make lemonade with lemons: The midwest agriculture grows what it can given the long and harsh winters and the hot and humid summers. It ain't Hawaii and it ain't California there. You need to look at land effeciency and corn is pretty darn good for that.

Oil Approaching Bear Market Territory

No figure how much value you create at all oil-depending industries by droping oil prices (into just 60% more than last years price).

On Oil and Its Manipulation

ronmac/dan: you small potatoes trader settle at the end of the month. if you would be a big potatoes trader you would roll over your deal at the end of the month because there is a bigger idot to buy. which is the reason why there is ten times the volume traded than delivered.

dan: all that is being asked is that you trade/speculate the same way AS IN equities, ie put up 50% margin and not 5-7%. Or even better gamble as in the casino, where the bank ALWAYS wins and you have to put up 100% of your chip value and not just 5-7%.

We Can Lower Gas Prices Now If We Drill, Drill, Drill

If there is any truth to the hypothesis of "more drilling = lower oil/gas price", then yesterday's announcement by the Iraqi's to increase oil production from 2.5 million barrel to 4 million barrel by accessing four new oil fields (as in NOW) should have sunk the oil price like a stone.
Lemme go check at the gas station right a way....

Even the Gas Crisis Needs a Culprit

Just to more points:
* Systems can be put into resonance mode which leads to catastrophic failure. So the Sanford Bernstein comment sounds intelligent but actuallty is wrong. You can have catalysts leading to catastrophic failure, think resonane, think nukes.
* The CFTC also admitted that they do neither have enough people nor the data to actually comment on the situation. In fact the very definition of the Enron loophole puts the CFTC out of monitoring ICE and DME, the prior being controlled by GS and MS, talking about fox in the henhouse...

Even the Gas Crisis Needs a Culprit

As opposed to Tim and redbaron, Masters actually delivered numbers ad nauseam. Only numbers are the facts. While Tim reiterated all qualitative arguments which are not facts then, the point Masters and Greenberg make is that if you care to look at the actual proportions and numbers they do not add up to justify the jump in the ENTIRE commodity sector, including oil. Further, even seasoned economists are not anymore defending the effecient market hypothesis. Finally, what we are seeing is a time delay in the system, much like other systems we may need to differentiate between the stochiometrics and the kinetics of the reaction. The kinetics do take time. The CDO and dot.com bust also did not happen over night, it was a six months long implosion.

Is Oil a Bubble? Part 3

The oil price bubble is a problem of financial paper demand and supply, just look a the relative proportions of physical to financial/index trading.
That said, don't ignore the greenhouse gas issue along the issue of increasing demand in Chindia. The first requires us (and anybody else) to wean of oil no matter how the bubble now turns out, the second will reignite long-term price increase and we have to become more effecient and think about where we actually really need petrochemicals. Arguably not in transportation (spare air travel), however in the petro-CHEMICAL industry. Arguably also not in fertilizer production. For those there are holistically better solutions. The benefit of the oil price bubble is that it drives energy effecient behavior, maybe for the wrong reason, but the outcome is positive overall. Just going ahead with oil exploration will increase CO2 output and that is the last we need.
I would have hopped for some more careful data reporting and analysis here.

Re: Cooling: Are you absolutely sure it is less effecient to cool houses in summer in the South vs. heat houses in the winter in the North? Do the math! Living in the North only works since mankind invented the fire and created greenhouse gases to go with it. Before, manking lived in the warmer regions. Somehow civilization started there and not at the poles.

Is Oil a Bubble? Part Two

Masters point was that we have a commodity bubble due to an influx of significant financial resources looking for high returns. In fact global assets under management have increased by 50% from 2000 to 2006. What is that money investing in after equities and real estate have become unattractive and debt is not providing 30% returns? Art? Cars? Clothes! Cotton!

To that end a myopic oil view isn't helpful. The latest commodity bubble being cotton contracts should make people wonder where all of the sudden the cotton demand is coming from. Why are farmers in the South not able to get contracts? Did all of a sudden a new fashion trend explode in going cotton pumping demand? Let me just make up a couple of urban legends:
* Cotton is in higher demand as more countries move out of poperty and desire higher value clothing with cotton.
* China and India has increased the average wardrobe size and now they need to fill it.
* The prolongation of the Iraq war has increased the demand for white tees by our forces.
* China is planning to build the largest Cotton shield for the olympics and that has dramatically added to cotton demand.
* As the polar caps melt, the increase in population in those regions will not wear fur but cotton to deal with the summer heat.

Anybody else wanna have a go ?

Why Is Oil Going Up?

Unfortunately the assertions do not take into account the mechanics of a futures driven market, that is dominated by index/financial speculators in an environment where more and more assets are chasing "unique" investment opps and create positive feedback loops.

KL's assertions would work if there was no such thing as a commodities exchange and if we would have a straight physical market. We don't. In fact the physical market is between 10-25% of trades.

Why Did Crude Oil Spike So High?

I am with sivere: Let's all go pray. That has really worked last time when my portfolio was in the dumps. Also, praying helps with any diseases (read the bible if you do not believe) and food, like I pray and there is food. It really works!

Understanding Crude Oil Prices

The article misses the new "buyers": "Index Speculators" if you follow Michael Master thoughts. Those long only financial speculators create demand without physical demand. Very much like CDO buyers, tech stock buyers in previous bubbles.
In fact, since 2000 the global assets under management have increased by 50%, all looking for superior returns, all chasing the same opportunities creating demand without increases in the underlying assets, or did the world economy expand by 50% from 2000 to 2006?
The sad part is that once oil drops back to 50-70, corn to 2.00 alternative energy may not look that attractive anynmore, so the cleantech bubble will pop too.