Superpilot92

so the economy and our country's well being is now a "game"?

these morons are pretty much admitting speculation is to blame and the airlines should learn to deal with it.

hopefully their greed will get the best of them!!

waflyboy

But the "speculators" are not trading the commodity. They are trading contracts to buy it.

DeltaPaySoon

That's what drives me nuts about speculation. They trade the paper on a product they never see, touch, handle, etc. Physically handling the product has no relevance on the price. If they get a buyer of the "paper", up goes the price.

Either way, the price gets jacked up, or down on a good day, on the end user and is reflected on the market at the end-of-day bell. As posted in another post, there is no such thing as the oil going directly from seller to buyer. These "middlemen" are playing their game with each other and we all have to wait to see who "won". IMHO, this industry or this country can't afford this game with the current rules. Of course speculators take offense to change. They're making ridiculous coin stroking each other.

waflyboy

I disagree, Delta. Trading a futures contract is quite different from trading the commodity itself, and I am not convinced there is sufficient evidence to draw a relationship between futures trading activity and the spot price of a commodity. Here is an interesting article on the subject:

The oil price | Don’t blame the speculators | Economist.com

Superpilot92

ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS SPECULATION JUST LOOK AT THIS

http://www.riverfrontig.com/commenta...c/sv063008.pdf

Superpilot92

Also today China announced they were going to export oil because they had to much. That should have dropped the price of oil today showing a decrease in demand in China, which is who the speculators like to blame for the Supply and Demand "issue", but instead Oil Spiked $5 dollars today on NOTHING. Speculators are trying to point fingers at anything but speculation to try and draw attention away from their greed.

This has alot more to do with speculation than some may want to admit.

DeltaPaySoon

That's ok if you disagree and want to put some belief in this article. I find a few major assumptions with it that disturb me. Particularly the belief that less speculation would lead to higher prices. That is a directed assumption without merit. Let's try it first and see what happens.

We have, not only, industries but countries wanting to end speculation gauging and the only opposition is from those speculating...or investing. That should tell you/us something.

tomgoodman

Bob Crandall made the same point in an interview many years ago. He noted that most passengers say they will gladly pay more for bigger seats, extra legroom, etc., but then turn around and book the cheapest fare.

milky

You guys still don't have a clue. The speculators are actually providing a service. They are willing to hold up a contract to provide whatever the commodity is at a specific price. That takes the risk off of the user of the commodity. That way, Continental can say that in 4 weeks, it knows that its flight to New York will cost exactly X amount in gas and therefore set the ticket price that high. It works with lots of other commodities and it is what makes our economy very stable. The fact that airlines do not know how to properly sell tickets at cost plus a percentage is the downfall of the industry.

AND LASTLY... If the price of gas was not going to support the contract, NO futures trader would buy a contract for a certain price of gas. If they believed the price was going down, they would be trying to buy lower priced contracts. THE TRADERS do not set the price of oil. THE MARKET DOES!!!!!!!!!

Why is this so hard. The media and left half of the government are feeding you lines to make you hate capitalism so that you will happily hand over your economic freedom to a more socialist government. At least they are good at what they do because most of you are diving head first into it. Sad.

TXTECHKA

in my opinion the high price of oil in the US is more related to the rapid decrease in the value of the dollar than speculation in the futures market. Only about 10 percent of the activity in the futures market is related to speculators, the rest are hedgers. If we hadn't become so dependent on foreign products, exporting our jobs and immigrant workers maybe our economy would be a little stronger.