RSS feedspeculators
’Speculators, slapped
The US doesn’t like high oil prices. Neither does it like the speculators it thinks exacerbates them.
So why not take aim at both?
On Thursday the International Energy Agency announced it would release 60m barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles in response to the Libyan crisis (which,
The silver crowd
The wonders of Google auto-suggest, silver vox pop edition:
Which is the perfect lead-in to John Kemp’s excellent take on the generalised commodities sell-off of recent days.
As the Reuters columnist wrote on Thursday:
David Rosenberg’s cartoon-ish 2011
David Rosenberg’s gone all cartoony.
The Gluskin Sheff analyst seems to have given up on on words and is instead using charts — and Loony Tunes — to illustrate his (very salient) points.
The introductory text:
It’s a zero-sum game Mr. Hari
In case you missed it, the Independent’s Johann Hari has done a Matt Taibbi — yes he of Vampire Squid fame.
But this time the author doesn’t just accuse the bank of gross financial manipulation, he accuses the institution of single-handedly starving millions around the world 2006 onwards.
The pictorial, speculative, yen carry trade
Academics have been busy figuring out ways to plug the gaps in pre-crisis financial data.
In a BIS working paper, Stephen Cecchetti, Ingo Fender and Patrick McGuire identify and analyse two data sets that they think were lacking in the run-up to the financial crisis.
Trojan speculators, or, one headache for the Greek authorities
“We are in a state of war, in a battle against special interests, both at home and outside Greece. It is a battle against speculators and for transparency, so that markets are at the service of the people,
Chart du jour, commodity speculator edition
The ever watchful Sean Corrigan at Diapason Commodities drew our attention on Monday to the state of outright net speculative length in crude products on the Nymex.
Here’s the chart:
The chart shows the value of all net speculative length in crude-related products on the Nymex charted against combined implied daily demand.
No, not everyone is shorting the euro
On Wednesday, Bank of New York Mellon’s FX analyst Simon Derrick proffered some wise words on the matter of currency speculation and the recent sell-off in both the euro and pound.
Just like FT Alphaville,
The not entirely unexpected Germano-Greek inquisition
Speculators, beware.
From Reuters on Monday:
Germany’s financial watchdog has taken steps to identify speculators in Greek debt to ensure they do not benefit unduly from any rescue of Greece, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
And so it begins…
…the backlash against those nasty conspiratorial financial speculators who have caused all this sovereign debt crisis stuff, that is.
The following quotes come from a Newsnight interview with Christine Lagarde,
Let’s throw a concert for Greece
The EU’s response to the Greek crisis has fallen rather flat.
Markets are lacklustre on Friday morning — a day after European leaders pledged “determined and co-ordinated action if needed to safeguard stability”
Is the CFTC trying to restrict physical traders after all?
Thursday’s CFTC proposals on position limits in the energy markets were largely seen as a ‘light touch’ by industry voices. This is because, quantifiably speaking, they set loose limits that hardly went beyond those already enforced by exchanges in the form of accountability limits.
Barcap say speculators are not to blame!
Last Friday the CFTC re-categorised the way it presents trader positions in its weekly report to reflect more specifically the type of contracts being held by “managed money” and “swap dealers” — ie,
How effective are speculative limits in commodities anyway?
As has been well-publicised, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is considering increasing position limits in energy commodities trading, on the perception that large speculative inflows may have contributed to last summer’s epic oil price-moves.
Dresdner/Commerzbank blames oil speculators
Wow, the commods analysts at Dresdner/Commerzbank have taken a rather bold — if slightly self-congratulatory — stand on oil speculators.
In a note published on Thursday, analysts Eugen Weinberg, Barbara Lambrecht and Carsten Fritsch,
Evil commodities speculators in the dock
The CFTC hearings into the evil commodity speculators have got under way in Washington. Those testifying on Tuesday include:
Panel One: Jeff Sprecher, Intercontinental Exchange and Terry Duffy,
What’s really moving the energy markets
Supply? Bleh.
Demand? Bleh.
Geopolitical risk? Bleh.
Speculators? Sort of.
Fear of over-regulation? Yup!
That, at least, is the observation of Jeff Korzenik at (in)efficient frontiers this week,