[agere_contra]

Oil speculators have not left the oil market. They've left the long side of the oil market, but they're still there on the short side.

[domenad]

True, and even the legislation they’re considering won’t eliminate speculation. But the correlation is stil there - speculation decreases, the price drops. I don’t want to interfere in free markets any more than necessary. In this case, oil goes to people who produce, not people who endlessly hand stuff back and forth.

[SAJ]

Well, the big specs are still long...they're just fairly less long than they were. COT figs are available at cftc.gov; click on Commitment Of Traders, then select the report you want. They're updated through 7 July at this time. I shouldn't be at all surprised if Wed-Fri last week that the big specs bailed even more longs. Won't know this until Friday, sadly (STILL a 3-day lag in reporting...UNacceptable in 2009, sheesh).

However, the anti-spec crowd ONLY considers specs as longs, and thus evilly driving up prices. Ho hum. Nor would teaching economics in pulbic screwels help this situation; the 'teachers' would, in large majority, be equally ill-informed or outright socialists/Marxists.