Speculators like Goldman Sachs taking advantage of pliable politicians and regulators to change rules? Amazingly, this is what Matt Taibbi described a few months ago. Perhaps someone in the Obama administration reads Rolling Stone?
[Do Not Oil This Index]
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild swings in oil prices — a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.
In a contentious report last year, the main U.S. futures-market regulator pinned oil-price swings primarily on supply and demand. But that analysis was based on “deeply flawed data,” Bart Chilton, one of four CFTC commissioners, said in an interview Monday.
The CFTC’s new review, due to be released in August, adds fuel to a growing debate over financial investors who bet on the direction of commodities prices by buying contracts tied to indexes. These speculators have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts that were once dominated by producers and consumers who sought to hedge against oil-market volatility.
[Click to continue reading Traders Blamed for Oil Spike – WSJ.com]
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and
The debate over speculators underscores the shifting nature of commodities trading in recent years. Before the mid-1990s, these markets were dominated by entities that had physical dealings with the underlying commodity, and “speculators” who often took the opposite position, providing liquidity to markets.
But a new group of investors has emerged in recent years. Those who want to bet on commodities prices have increasingly put their money in indexes that track the value of futures contracts, in which investors promise to pay a certain amount in the future for oil and other commodities. As of July 2008, financial investors had about $300 billion riding on these indexes, roughly four times the level in January 2006, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based watchdog.
Separately, these investors may buy derivatives, not directly traded on futures exchanges, that let them make contrary bets to offset their risks.
Crude-oil prices surged in July 2008 to a record $145 a barrel, then dropped to about $33 in December. Oil now trades at around $68 a barrel.
Of course, Goldman Sachs is not mentioned by name in this article, why would they be? They are just one the single largest futures speculators