Wall Street is driving up oil prices (Evil Wall Street and Oil Companies at it again. /sarc)

MSNBC ^ | 3/30/2010 | John W. Schoen

[tobyhill]

Oil prices have steadily rose over the last year, and experts are worrying further increases could snuff out an already-fragile global economic recovery.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce Wednesday his plan to open oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico. The proposal aims to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil, which theoretically could hold down prices for U.S. consumers.

OPEC countries also are convening in Mexico this week to map out a strategy for keeping prices from rising higher.

But officials may face an even bigger problem: The recent rise in prices seems to be driven by Wall Street investors — not market supply and demand.

Though prices crashed from their peak of $140 a barrel before the recession began in December 2007, they have since recovered substantially. Last year, the price of crude fell to $33 a barrel before a relentless recovery to about $80 by year-end.

[1rudeboy]

How big must Semgroup's positions have been to rack up $2.5 billion in losses? In the simplest (and purely hypothetical) terms, to lose that much since January, Semgroup would need to have shorted 50 million barrels of crude oil at $100, then lost roughly $50 on each barrel. This is enormous, says Andrew Lipow, a Houston oil trading consultant, noting that such a position would be equal to one-sixth of the entire U.S. crude inventory of 300 million barrels.

"Betting turned into a habit they couldn't get out of. The only way to keep going was to make bigger bets," says attorney Levy.

[jiggyboy]

So does that mean that others conspired to put Semgroup out of business?

http://www.google.com/search?q=semgroup+barclays&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Articles are available for those of any attention span, economic aptitude, and reasoning ability.

[1rudeboy]

I'm posting the information I find here. Why don't you do the same? So Semgroup tried to manipulate the market lower, got crushed when it went higher, and was vindicated when it went lower?

So by failing, they succeeded?

[jiggyboy]

Your trolling was obvious on your first post, now it’s just getting tiresome. Oh look, here’s your source Forbes naming names of manipulators.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0413/096-sachs-semgroup-goldman-goose-oil.html

[1rudeboy]

I’m just asking some simple questions that you (obviously) are unable to answer. The price of a barrel of oil was, what, $100 in January of 2008? Semgroup bet it would fall, it went up to $150, and Semgroup got crushed like a bug. Where’s the conspiracy?

[1rudeboy]

From your latest link:

What's the evidence of this? Much is circumstantial.

Some answers may emerge in late March when former FBI director Louis Freeh releases a report on the trading surrounding Semgroup's demise. He was hired by Semgroup and given subpoena power by the bankruptcy court judge in Delaware. Meanwhile the Securities & Exchange Commission is investigating, and lawyers involved in the bankruptcy say that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office is looking into the actions of New York firms in the collapse.

[calex59]

What frickin’ recovery? These communist lie with every breath they take and every word they type or utter.

[1rudeboy]

Oh, what a shame. Freeh's report doesn't back you up:

In a 258-page report filed with the court on Wednesday, Louis Freeh, a former head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation who was appointed in October to investigate the firm's collapse, accused SemGroup's co-founders and top executives of engaging in risky sales of crude oil options while bypassing the firm's self-imposed controls and misrepresenting the trading to lenders and SemGroup's management committee as normal hedging activity.

SemGroup examiner pins collapse on former execs, Reuters.

Problem with conspiracy theories is, they never quite make it over the finish line.

[expat_panama]

So by failing, they succeeded?

No Rude, Jiggy's Forbes link from a year ago gives the names of those responsible for manipulating oil prices this week.

Or something like that.

[jiggyboy]

Please. Reframing the argument is one of the laziest tricks of the most obvious economic troll in the place. Freeh blamed Kivesto for losing money. The matter of whether it was “supply and demand” or not that moved oil from 90 to 147 to 30 in twelve months was resolved long ago.

[1rudeboy]

As far as I can tell, a boatload of oil producers sold their oil to Semgroup and didn't get paid (before Semgroup declared bankruptcy). Technically, they are unsecured creditors (meaning that they're screwed) but they do have a level of statutory protection under Oklahoma law (meaning that they might not be screwed).

Under this cloud of legal wrangling, you can sure as heck guarantee that some attorney, somewhere, will attempt to bring-in Barclays, Goldman Sachs, The Church of England, the Pope, the Romulans, or anybody else humanely possible.

You've got the gasoline, who's got a match?

[1rudeboy]

Please. Reframing the argument is one of the laziest tricks of the most obvious economic troll in the place.

Lazy? Maybe. But only a true expert can reframe an argument that you are too lazy to make. Chew on that, genius.

[jiggyboy]

So it would follow that the three-year old Forbes article is three times as irrelevant? Or something like that?

[1rudeboy]

It would be if you could prove it. [hint]

[expat_panama]

--and you promised me the earthlings would never discover our tampering in their markets...

[Toddsterpatriot]

The recent rise in prices seems to be driven by Wall Street investors — not market supply and demand.

If I buy an oil future on the NYMEX, how is that not market demand?

[tet68]

“Oil prices have steadily rose over the last year...”

If the rest of the article is like this, why bother?

[Toddsterpatriot]

much of what drove the price of oil up in the first place was speculation

Speculators buying oil contracts from speculators selling oil contracts drove up the price? Or did you mean something else?