Kristin Did It

• Posted by Adam Warner
• on July 28th, 2009

Who’s messin’ with them there oil prices? Time to round up the usual suspects.

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.

This is outrageous. I am shocked SHOCKED that investors bet on the direction of commodities prices by buying contracts tied to the indexes. Who even knew there were futures and options, not to mention ETF’s and leveraged ETF’s, tied to commodity prices? Who are the nitwits that approved trading on these vehicles in the first place without properly controling the market so it only moves the way we want it to? Oh wait, that was probably the CTFC.

In other news, I am hearing rumors that financial investors bet on the direction of stock prices. Yes, you heard me correctly, they buy financial products and hope they go higher so they can sell them to someone else. In fact these very unsavory characters may have something to do with the market lift since March. Not only that, there are also financial investors who sell calls against their investments, thereby driving down options volatility. Yup, I was amazed to hear that too.

Anyway, not to worry, Jimmy Booya will get to the bottom of this for you all.

Who?

Who did what?

Who manipulated oil up? Who caused the spike? Who manipulated stocks, as we all know happened, with naked shorting?

Manipulation is a crime.

We know that. We know that the CFTC has figured out traders manipulated. Why not turn them over to the authorities? We know short-sellers used naked shorting to manipulate stocks. Once again, though, the operative term is manipulation. It is true that the SEC had outlawed naked shorting, but manipulation is illegal and was illegal.

We need names.

Yes, because the best lesson an investor/trader can learn is to take credit for wins and blame someone else for losses.

Look, if there’s any there there, the SEC and CTFC will never find it anyway. Yes, I’m that cynical. But whatever, it’s a waste of time regardless. There’s not an even playing field out there. Learn to live within it or don’t trade/invest, unfortunately it’s that simple.

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