Many expect prices to head lower, but suppliers have little margin
The recent trajectory of oil prices — a fairly steady increase followed by a much more vertical rise — has a familiar look to it. Remember those charts of tech stocks and housing prices? It's hard not to wonder: Are oil prices forming the next big “bubble?"
Those who see a bubble forming say you need look no further than the recent run-up in the cost of a barrel of crude to the current level of about $124.
“We were only trading at $86 about three months ago and not a whole lot has changed to move us to where we are now,” said Addison Armstrong, Director of Market Research for Tradition Energy. “There's no doubt in my mind — and most other people I speak to — we are in a bubble. And it's going to deflate at some point.”
Bubble proponents argue that if demand for oil continues to ease and supplies hold up, the speculative fever driving up prices could quickly evaporate, and prices could fall sharply.
It wouldn’t be the first time prices have crashed. In 1986, oil prices began the year at $26 a barrel. By March, crude was selling for $10.25. In 1997, prices peaked in October at nearly $23 a barrel only to fall below $11 a little more than a year later.
But the forces that caused those oil “crashes” aren’t evident today. The 1986 slide was the result of heavy overproduction by OPEC, when Saudi Arabia opened the spigots after fellow cartel members cheated on their quotas. The 1998 pullback also resulted from a huge oversupply after the Asian economy unexpectedly slowed sharply as a currency crisis swept through the region.
Today, the world’s oil producers have little extra capacity, and the Asian economy is booming. Bubble skeptics say that while oil prices may be due for a pullback, the longer-term trend is clearly higher.
“When I hear bubble, I'm thinking of a technology bubble where we spike up and we just never come back to it again,” said Chris Jarvis, an energy analyst at Caprock Risk Management. “I don't think that’s the case. I think if anything you’re talking about more of a short-term pullback. What is short term? I don't know, nine months to a year. But the trend higher is still intact. I would definitely not call it bubble.”
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NVDL: What a great article from MSNBC, and actually written by the Senior Producer there, John W. Schoen. It's insightful because it clearly addresses the schism in our psychology. At one end of the spectrum the optimistics are saying - this bad news stuff has got to end soon (very unscientific, but one could argue there is some basic common sense there), and at the other end, reality. Unfortunately the oil phenomenon is quite a complicated problem to wade through in order to get to the simple facts. Not many people are prepared to do that, and those who do start getting confused when they're ankle deep, and tend to throw up their hands and say - well no one knows the answer, so I'll just believe and be positive. Ironically, this explains the belief systems of about 95% of the world's population (who believe there is a God). Never mind that the most intelligent people in the world - our scientists and intellectuals - are pretty clear that God is a fairy tale, a brave enough in their reasoning and their intellectual capacity to say this.
Anyhoo...what do I predict? I predict prices will fall back a teeny bit right now, perhaps going to as low as $110-$115, maybe slightly lower. And just when we are starting to sigh with relief, inearly July, prices will ratchet up again to over $130. They might go higher. They'll simmer lower again as we approach America's winter, and then it's fasten your seatbelts time...I'm predicting $140-$150 by Christmas, but you can start saying your goodbye's to two digit oil prices. That's over. We won't be spending very long periods in any particular zone, we'll see incredible volatility overnight as the system chokes and swims and chokes again.
I hate to burst your bubble, but the only bubble that is out there now is the US housing bubble. Other bubbles will follow, and there will be carnage. Yes, in South Africa as well. And it is deflating everywhere like a wobbly balloon. Can you hear that infernal flubbery shriek. And with each notch the oil price steps up, you'll hear an outward belch of air in property prices. Energy prices (this includes coal and ordinary food) will continue to gain momentum as our global efficiencies start to back-fire, and the financial system starts to eat itself.
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