Professor Charles M. Jones talked with Leonard Lopate last week on WNYC’s Please Explain about the intricacies of the futures market.
Just last week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced an investigation into possible price manipulation in the oil futures market.
“It’s too soon to know exactly what might be going on in oil prices, although this big run up I think has some people’s antennas up,” Jones told Lopate.
According to Jones, the last case of real manipulation was almost 30 years ago, when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market.
“Cornering the market and these types of manipulations can really reduce confidence in the market,” Jones said. “They’re really the regulators’ nightmare, and it’s the main thing they’re trying to prevent.”
Comments
i think that you`re right. the financial and political world need a serious research about this matter but the actual scenario has much of speculative brokers practices. Please, send me more information about your future research.
The reality is HFs loaded on to the short financials/long oil trade. As SEC restricted short selling in financials inevitably the oil side of the trade got taken off. In a derivative market were net longs equal net shorts, blaming speculation for run up in prices is pure baloney. Downside and upside speculation essentially balance out. However, CFTC could investigate whether some funds entered into phoney transactions merely to prop up reported prices on contracts. However, proving this would be tough.
Add Your Comments