Replies

Actually, my last post pretty much exhausted my knowledge of the oil market. What I understand is that below $40 per barrel, oil companies will post a loss on the cost of leases, drilling, extraction and transport costs. Some of these costs can't be stopped by stopping drilling, as there are contractual obligations, payroll, etc.

Manipulation, I THINK, actually didn't involve a huge amount of money (huge for me, but not for the guys who did it.) I think early on, the manipulators used their investment like a guy that uses a snowball to start an avalanche. Once it got rolling, it took on it's own life. I don't think there's much manipulative money going on right now, as I think people are out of the market based more on fear of depressed demand, rather than trying to keep the price artificially low.