Author: DennisDennis Date: Jul 25, 2008 07:35
FROM NY TIMES
HEAD: SPECULATORS ARE NOT DRIVING UP OIL PRICES, REPORT SAYS
As Congress debates how to curtail the role of speculators and rein in
rising oil prices, a federal task force said this week that it had so far
found no evidence that those investors are systematically pushing up the
cost of energy, says the New York Times.
Instead, in an interim report by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
with help from six other agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the
Treasury, the task force said that its research "does not support the
hypothesis that the activity of these groups is driving prices higher."
Other findings:
The rise in oil prices over the last five years was largely due to
fundamental factors like rapidly rising consumption and sluggish growth in
energy supplies worldwide.
A review of both public and nonpublic data shows that speculators could not
be fairly blamed for rising prices.
For example, swap dealers, who privately offer investors a future return
linked to commodity markets, were roughly balanced between purchases and
sales of energy futures contracts.
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