Playing the oil market

摘要

Clearly the US authorities are starting to play the oil markets at their own game.In the past,any major event led to near certain speculative profit by paying a premium for spot and futures contracts.The only real debate being how high prices could be pushed and how long before the situation resolved and the prices fell.By threatening release of strategic reserves,and actually doing it at intervals to make the threats plausible,the initiative is recaptured.Speculative activity becomes more risky and less rewarding.