The Oil Drum

161 comments on Whither Oil Prices?

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gtjeffers on September 17, 2006 - 9:49am

Excellant point about the marginal barrel unable to command $77 at the moment. In this post, we are discussing current oil trading prices, not Peak Oil. Prices today reflect the desire of market particpants - not environmentalists, doomsters, politicians...

I have worked on Wall Street for nearly 20 years. A former boss once said:
"a - fill in the blank with stock, bond, commodity - will keep going up till it stops going up, and it will keep going down until it stops going down". And "they always go up farther than you thought possible, and down farther than you thought possible". If do not trade for a living, this statements might seem simplistically obvious. When you have a great deal of money on the line... they can eat a hole in your stomach.

At the moment the short term trend is down, even though we had a couple of days of pause. As a trader, I would not reach for the falling knife, so i must believe that prices are headed lower. Prognosticating a price point of the bottom? Ha! These are always made by economists who do not a penny of their own money in the game.

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Don in Colorado on September 18, 2006 - 2:27am

I don't know how you guys do this kind of thing for a living. It's insane.

All these people who put their life saving into speculative houses over the last couple of years. Reading the headlines today must be a nightmare for them.