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<p>I just saw this on Fox News by Carl Cameron.</p>

AP: FBI Investigating Fannie, Freddie, Lehman & AIG

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 09/18/2008 Pelosi: House Took Strong Action Today to Curb Excessive Speculation in Energy Futures Markets Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on House passage of the Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act, legislation that takes crucial, common-sense steps to curb excessive speculation in the energy futures markets. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly by a vote of 283 to 133, and now goes to the Senate. “This week, the Democratic-Led Congress has taken serious and comprehensive steps to ensure American energy independence and help consumers with...

Evaporating access to credit and fears of an economic washout are taking a toll on oil prices, forcing speculators using borrowed money out of the market. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s sudden bankruptcy filing and Merrill Lynch & Co.'s pending sale to Bank of America Corp. suggest big banks may be less willing or able to absorb debt to boost trading positions, with implications for the inherently leveraged oil-futures markets. Analysts believe that could have a ripple effect on other speculative investors in the market. Widespread liquidation of futures contracts compounded fears of faltering oil demand in knocking oil down near...

It was said to be the year of speculators gone wild. Seemingly everyone in Washington, including Barack Obama and John McCain, decided that oil prices were soaring because profiteers and middlemen were manipulating the futures markets. "Speculators" were spotted everywhere this side of the grassy knoll. The only problem is that there's no evidence to support the conspiracy theories -- and sure enough, federal regulators dismantled this Beltway consensus late last week. In one of the broadest and most authoritative studies to date, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has offered hard statistical data that financial trading hasn't been driving price...

Energy: As oil ran up over the last two years, Congress and the media had a field day blaming speculators. But a new report shows they were unfairly scapegoated.The long-awaited report to Congress on speculation comes as the price of oil on global markets has fallen to nearly $100 a barrel — a drop of 32% since peaking at $147.27 on July 11. In its report, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said this year's spike in crude futures appears to be due to "an appreciation of the value of existing investments caused by the rise in crude oil prices and...

BBC News reports that another hedge fund has closed down thanks to its failure to bail out of the oil speculation trade that boosted oil to a peak of $147 in July. This is yet another piece of evidence that people like Hank Paulson, who insisted that record oil prices were due to supply and demand, were either being less than honest -- particularly since his former employer Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) was a big beneficiary of this speculation -- or ignorant of reality. The hedge fund in question this time is Ospraie Fund, which invested in commodities like...

I'm not much of a believer in conspiracy theories. I've seen up close and personal how wrong they were in the case of my old boss, Richard M. Nixon. He was not a criminal mastermind. He was not paying attention to a bunch of juvenile delinquent aides and they did him dirt. It was a case of an absent minded father, not a KGB plot. But every so often something happens in the world of finance that is at least a bit like a conspiracy. The Drexel-Milken junk bond fraud was a conspiracy, at least as I saw it (though...

Oil prices jumped Monday in Asia on concern that a showdown over Iran's nuclear program could threaten crude supplies out of the Middle East. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday that the United States would have no choice "but to begin again to prepare sanctions resolutions for the (U.N.) Security Council" if Iran did not halt the development of its uranium enrichment program. Rice said that given the U.N.'s current scheduling, sanctions probably could not be expected in the next few weeks, but the U.S. will begin working with allies toward that goal. "There's concern about a potential...

Calling President Bush's proposal to lift the 18-year moratorium on new offshore oil drilling "a political gimmick" that he will not allow to come to the floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is instead pushing his own proposal, a bill requiring the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to curb excessive speculation in energy markets.The bill, which stalled Friday when Sen. Reid was unable to find 60 votes to overcome GOP demands for numerous amendments including one to allow more offshore drilling, would require traders to provide more information about over-the-counter transactions, and also adds restrictions to U.S.-based traders buying and...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government charged an oil trading firm Thursday with manipulating oil prices, the first complaint to be announced since the regulators began a new investigation into wrongdoings in the energy markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Optiver Holding, two of its subsidiaries, and three employees, with manipulation and attempted manipulation of crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Optiver traders amassed large trading positions, then conducted trades in such a way to bully and hammer the markets," CFTC Acting Chairman Walt Lukken said at a press conference. "These charges...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic-backed bill to rein in energy market speculators blamed for high crude oil and gasoline prices cleared a U.S. Senate procedural hurdle on Tuesday, but final passage of the legislation remained uncertain. Supporters mustered far more than the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to proceed with the measure, with 94 senators voting "yes" and none against. Yet Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West. The Senate legislation would require...

Inconvenient Truths About Oil USA Tom Glennon -  May 24, 2008   http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/t_glennon/2008/05242008.htm Before my recent retirement after a career of almost 40 years, I had the unique opportunity to work in the technology areas for a major oil company, an international financial operation, and one of the world’s largest international banks. As a result, although not an expert in either exploration or production of crude oil and its impact on financial and consumer markets, I did have access to information that most American consumers did not. This was not secret data, nor was it proprietary information. It was...

Congress is investigating oil speculators, bank stocks are being pummeled, and housing prices are dropping precipitously in certain markets. And this is the good news. I was always taught in my graduate and undergraduate classes that markets are rational, but after looking at the current market valuation of bank stocks, one must seriously consider if our markets are being manipulated. It would be reasonable to question whether the U.S. is being subjected to an economic attack. In the aftermath of 9/11, there was a great deal of speculation about...

SINGAPORE: Investing legend and commodities guru Jim Rogers says crude oil prices have been going up thanks to an unprecedented demand-supply mismatch. He said those who blame speculators for oil price surge do not understand the oil reality in the world. Talking to Commodity Online, Rogers, who founded the Rogers International Commodity Index, said he has been predicting all these years that oil price would go up because of shortage of supply. ”Some people blame speculation for oil price rise. If it is speculation, when the oil price is too high, the people with oil will drown the speculators. It...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Hundreds of grounded planes. Thousands of lost jobs. Nearly two dozen price hikes. Record oil prices have battered the airline industry, and Wednesday the airlines called on Congress to act. In an open letter to all airline customers, CEOs from 12 of the nation's airlines said lawmakers must curb excessive speculation to scale back record fuel costs. "Normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation," the letter said. "The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem." The airline industry said that Congress' previously established...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Expecting to lose an estimated $10 billion this year because of skyrocketing fuel costs, chief executives of the country's biggest airlines Wednesday resorted to begging their customers to press Congress for tougher regulation of energy markets.

ALTHOUGH the price of oil continues to hit new records, it has in one respect been a quiet week on the oil markets. America’s lawmakers are celebrating Independence Day by taking a few days off. That has led to a brief interruption in the torrent of proposals aimed at curbing speculation. Ten different bills on the subject are in the works in Congress. Before the House of Representatives shut up shop, it approved one by a vote of 402-19. America’s politicians are not the only ones to have fingered speculators for the feverish rise in the price of oil and...

Despite Congress' periodic hauling of weak-kneed oil executives before their committees to charge them with collusion and price-gouging, subsequent federal investigations turn up no evidence to support the charges. Now oil company executives are getting a bit of a respite as Congress has turned its attention to crude-oil speculators, blaming them for high oil prices and calling for tighter control over commodity futures trading. Let's look at the futures market and for simplicity use corn futures. While corn is different from oil, both obey the laws of supply and demand, just as humans are very different from bricks but both...

Congress is back in session and oil prices are still through the roof, so pointless or destructive energy legislation is all but guaranteed. Most likely is stiffer regulation of the futures market, since Democrats and even many Republicans have so much invested in blaming "speculators" for $4 gas. Congress always needs a political villain, but few are more undeserving. Futures trading merely allows market participants to determine the best estimate – based on available information like supply and demand and the rate of inflation – of what the real price of oil will be on the delivery date of the...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Atlanta hedge fund manager Michael Masters has been a star witness in two recent Congressional hearings on how speculators are supposedly driving up oil prices. Masters and I don't see eye-to-eye on this issue, so I was surprised to get a call from him after my "Don't Blame The Oil Speculators" column went up on Fortune.com last week. Masters contends that without speculators, the price of oil would be $65 or $70 a barrel. He points out that the amount invested in commodities index products has risen from $13 billion to $260 billion in five years,...

Politicians who try to make oil cheaper by restraining speculation will just make things worse ALTHOUGH the price of oil continues to hit new records, it has in one respect been a quiet week on the oil markets. America’s lawmakers are celebrating Independence Day by taking a few days off. That has led to a brief interruption in the torrent of proposals aimed at curbing speculation. Ten different bills on the subject are in the works in Congress. Before the House of Representatives shut up shop, it approved one by a vote of 402-19. America’s politicians are not the only...

Drilling off the coast of California, Florida and elsewhere would increase domestic oil production by 7 percent by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. But “because oil prices are determined on the international market…any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.” There is no short-term benefit to drilling, says the EIA, because it would take at least five years for oil production to begin. (Source: Center for American Progress.)

LONDON: London's Brent crude oil hit 146 dollars a barrel for the first time on Thursday, as traders reacted to Middle East tensions, falling US crude reserves and the weak dollar. Brent North Sea oil for August delivery surged to a life-time peak of 146.34 dollars. New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, meanwhile surged past 145 for the first time to reach an all-time pinnacle of 145.43 dollars a barrel. Analysts said a weaker US dollar, and data that revealed a drop in stockpiles of US crude, helped push prices higher. The US Energy Information...

<p>Before the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission starts scrutinizing the role that speculators may have played in driving up fuel and food prices, investigators may want to take a look at price swings in a commodity not in today's news: onions.</p>

Sen. Obama's plan to attack the "oil speculators" who are "driving" up the price of oil by regulating futures contracts on American oil may not be pandering (America certainly cannot, for example, regulate oil futures on Nigerian crude in Switzerland), but it is sure close, and here is why, and I'm sure all those people who helped him draw up this plan know it.

(remember all those "speculators"?...)

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- "Make no mistake about it," U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said Monday while chairing a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "Excessive speculation in commodity markets is having a devastating effect at the gas pump that is rippling through our entire economy." Here's a suggestion: The next time a Congressional committee wants to hold a hearing on how "speculators" are driving up oil prices, each committee member should first be required to demonstrate - preferably in their opening remarks - a basic understanding of the mechanics of futures trading. Even...

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation that directs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all its authority, including the agency's emergency powers, to "curb immediately" the role of excessive speculation in energy futures markets. Hedge funds, pension funds and other speculators have been blamed by many lawmakers and some energy experts for doubling the price for crude oil in the last year. The Bush administration disagrees, saying high prices are the result of world oil production not being able to keep up with growing global fuel demand. The bill easily cleared the House in a...

WASHINGTON — Growing global demand for oil and the fear of supply disruptions have created a "shortage psychology" that is helping keep fuel prices high, a leading energy analyst told Congress on Wednesday. Many speculators now are convinced the world is "running out of oil," energy expert Daniel Yergin told a Joint Economic Committee hearing. "As prices go up, this psychology becomes self-reinforcing," sending prices higher still - at least, until consumption patterns change dramatically. "We are in an oil shock," said Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. "Four years ago, oil was around $40 a...

WASHINGTON — Almost all the economists studying today’s high oil prices think that financial speculators are helping drive up those prices, but hard data is lacking as to whether they’re a factor, and if so, how big. Michael Greenberger said speculation is a major factor, and he knows a lot about the complex global oil market. He directed trading and markets for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1997 to 1999. That body regulates the trading of contracts for future deliveries of commodities, including crude oil. The contracts, called futures, drive oil prices. Greenberger, a law professor at the University...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil expert Daniel Yergin will tell Congress on Wednesday that speculative oil traders have played a role in driving up prices but other factors, such as the subprime mortgage crisis, have also been a factor.

"I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil. There's a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight." Those are the words of presidential candidate John McCain. This man is the Republican? There's more. "I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate...

In today’s Guest Blog spot, I decided to contact Chuck E. Cash from Forex-Trading-School.com. I wanted to get his thoughts and insight on what he thought about the current commodity markets, with Crude and Gasoline as the specific targets. Take a look below and enjoy! ========================================================= It’s hard not to notice the rally cries coming out of the political parties lately. Each side has their “solution” for the energy problem. The left wants windfall profit taxes and investigations. The right wants a tax holiday and more drilling. Lately I’ve been wondering, are the spat of energy ETFs partly to blame?...

The chart above shows that open interest (volume) for crude oil futures contracts declined by more than 16% since last November, and yet oil prices kept going up. Less oil futures trading, less speculation, but higher oil prices? Isn't is supposed to be the other way around?

SEN. John McCain recently called for a "thorough and complete investigation of speculators" to see if they've driven up oil prices. And Senate Democrats plan a new bill aimed at commodity speculators - a witch hunt that's clearly about oil. But, much as politicians would like to blame speculators, it's just not so. For starters, there's nothing about futures or options that makes it any more attractive to bet that commodity prices will go up than to bet they'll go down. Guess wrong on the direction, and you lose money. The "blame speculators" theorists have several worries. Investors in oil...

The stock market plunged 170 points this morning and oil jumped over $3, allegedly based on a New York Times story that Israel is carrying out military exercises as a rehearsal to bombing Iran. But actually, the Times story, written by the very able war correspondent Michael R. Gordon, is talking about Israeli training exercises from early June, not now. ItÂ’s a rehash story with some new details. And it does in fact confirm the market rumors of June 5 and 6 that Israel was planning an Iranian attack to stop the rogue stateÂ’s nuclear-weapons program. Recall that oil jumped...

US regulators have announced plans to impose limits on oil trades overseas. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the London-based electronic exchange would have to comply with US rules. The move comes as oil prices notch up record highs, amid fears that speculators are distorting the market. As a result, fuel costs have shot up hitting the global economy. Airlines have been hit badly, with near record losses expected for 2008 in the US. US airlines were forecast to report $10bn (£5bn) of losses this financial year as sky-high fuel costs erode profits, according to the industry group Air...

Surging oil prices have often sent stock markets tumbling this year when, according to one view, investors should embrace rising energy costs because they boost the bottom line of many large-cap U.S. companies. The energy sector is now the largest earnings contributor to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX, Wall Street's benchmark for corporate America's profitability, said David Bianco, head of U.S. equity strategy at investment bank UBS in New York. Many investors see the rise in crude prices as a negative because of its potential impact on economic growth and the wallets of American consumers. That view, however,...

With oil prices closing above $125 a barrel of oil on Friday, angry politicians are blaming the higher prices on everything from speculators to greedy oil companies. Last week some Democratic Senators demanded “urgent action . . . to adequately investigate whether speculators are driving up prices.” Democrats are proposing to protect the American people from “greedy oil traders who manipulate the market.” Senator Barack Obama wants price gouging by oil companies to be a federal crime. Everyone wants lower prices, but many politicians seem unable to understand that speculators actually smooth out wild swings in prices. Speculators make profits...

Crude Oil Prices Could Be Easily Manipulated; Helped By Ridiculously Low 7% Margin Requirement for Oil Futures. We Don't Know That Oil Prices Are Being Manipulated, But They Could. The ridiculously low 7% margin requirement for crude oil futures contracts means that oil producers, big or small, could easily be manipulating the price of oil for their own benefit. That's not to say that pension funds and other hedge players aren't also going steadily long crude oil and other commodity futures. But it is in the obvious self interest of oil producers to have an ever rising price of crude....

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - Significantly raising margin requirements on oil futures trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NMX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) would not rein in speculative investors and bring down crude prices, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Friday. Many U.S. lawmakers blame hedge funds, pension fund managers and other speculative investors for pushing up prices for crude oil and other commodities to record levels. "I don't think that the margin requirements per se are going to have any impact on it," Bodman said in an interview on CNBC television. Legislation is pending in the U.S. Senate...

Banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions could find their investment strategies curtailed by the Federal Reserve to reduce the risk to the economy from asset bubbles, the US Treasury said on Tuesday. David Nason, the assistant secretary for financial institutions, said the US central bank should use its proposed new powers as a stability regulator to “lean against the wind” by forcing institutions to change their investment strategy if it judged they threatened the wider economy.

Taking the advice of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee, a Valley Village woman has sued the city over a new rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, criticizing the recently adopted density bonus ordinance and laying out a legal strategy to challenge it. On Thursday, homeowner Sandy Hubbard filed the first lawsuit using Usher's suggestions. A group of home and business owners is also considering a lawsuit. Usher and community groups have complained that the density bonus...

First the good news: Automotive expert Ed Wallace says there's no gasoline or oil shortage in the U.S. today and near-record reserves are on hand. Now the bad news: Not only has the congressional mandate for ethanol jacked up the price of food, but Washington, Wall Street and fuel producers all want you to think the gas and oil shortage they keep talking about is real. Washington, Wallace says, appears to be protecting oil speculators and ethanol producers rather than the interests of U.S. citizens who will ultimately pay higher prices for food and U.S. farmers, who are already staggering...

In a large, featureless convention centre 40 miles east of Los Angeles, more than 1,000 people have gathered early on a Sunday morning.From the stage, they are addressed in earnest by a man in tuxedo and bow tie, and they can watch the proceedings on giant video screens on either side of him. He is preaching property, and although this auctioneer's high-speed patter sounds more like a cattle auction, here they are bidding for homes. More than 100 houses are up for sale here and every two to three minutes a property goes under the hammer. Similar auctions of...

Think oil at $100 a barrel seems expensive? Speculators are already betting that the price will double to $200 by the end of the year. On the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the number of options purchased to buy oil at $200 has leapt 10-fold in the past two months to 5,533 contracts. The increase in demand is a record for any similar period according to Bloomberg News. The price for the contracts has jumped 36% since early December. Options contracts are a simple way for investors to speculate on rising prices. Buyers do not have to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Greed is driving oil prices to $100 a barrel. That's a common feeling among the general public, which sees record profits for investment banks that bet on oil prices - making wealthy oil companies even wealthier - while drivers shell out $3 and more for a gallon of gas. It's also a common refrain from OPEC states. Having to defend themselves against charges their production quotas are responsible for the high prices, they point to near-average crude oil supplies and say speculation is what's behind the frenzy. But industry experts offer mixed opinions on speculative investment's...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

WASHINGTON — Oil prices jumped to a record above $75 a barrel on Wednesday, propelled by a rally in gasoline that analysts said could send average U.S. pump prices past $3 a gallon by the weekend. Recent snags in oil-shipping and refining along the Gulf Coast have raised traders' concerns about motor-fuel supplies at a time when demand continues to rise despite soaring prices. The start of a new fiscal quarter also has brought more speculative money into the market, brokers said. "Everybody thought we'd hit a price that would create permanent demand destruction. But demand for gasoline is rising,"...