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Oil closes out the week strong

Posted May 29th 2009 5:40PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, Consumer experience, Middle East, Market matters, Oil, Recession, Financial Crisis

There is still much debate taking place as to whether or America is close to coming out of its current recession, but you would not know it by watching oil prices over the past few months. Today was no exception, with prices moving above $66 barrel as we head into the weekend.

It seems like a long time ago that oil prices were hovering down in the low $30's, but it was not all that long ago... just five months to be exact. As oil has been rising, so have gasoline prices. It is easy to view the current gas prices as "cheap", considering where we were this time last year, but you have probably already noticed a nice jump in what you are paying these days.

Continue reading Oil closes out the week strong

OPEC: Increasing oil output won't help prices

Posted Nov 15th 2007 4:45AM by Douglas McIntyre (RSS feed)
Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, Bad news, Economic data, Oil

One of the most novel arguments against raising oil production is that it won't help decrease prices. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it is what the ministers of OPEC want consuming nations to believe.

Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil told Reuters, "We have all the factors that impact the price, so if we increase, we are going to have the same phenomenon that happened before, which means, it may not even impact on the price." He may have missed the "supply and demand" lecture in his college economics course.

OPEC has several reasons for not improving supply, but the idea that it will not affect prices is absurd. Just the announcement of improved output from the cartel could cause a stampede of selling in oil futures.

What OPEC does want are guarantees from the big consuming nations, especially China and the U.S., that they will not invest too much in nuclear power and biofuels. The producing nations want to know that there will be oil demand two and three decades out. They are making plenty of money now, but will that continue in 2030?
The attitude being taken by OPEC is that it will not increase output in December. That could cause prices to rise again. But a promise of dialing back alternative energy development that might cut oil demand would almost certainly get more shipments of crude moving.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Holy wheat bubble

Posted Sep 25th 2007 2:05PM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and services, Commodities

The price of wheat says it all. Terrible drought conditions in Australia and poor supplies from Canada are driving prices for the crop through the roof.

This is occurring while demand is soaring as Iraq recently imported 700,000 tonnes and Algeria took in 100,000.

While prices are also being impacted by typical seasonal demand, there are plenty of buyers who put off purchases waiting for prices to moderate, which could keep prices high for awhile.

However, with that said, this is one commodity where the rug will be pulled out from under investors' feet. This looks like a short to this blogger.

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DJIA+73.0010,270.47
NASDAQ+18.862,167.88
S&P 500+6.241,093.48

Last updated: November 14, 2009: 06:00 PM

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