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Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

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Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#231

Post by cdelsolar »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #167
acdha wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not different because of who’s doing it but due to scale: creating news which steers markets is worse than trading based on insider information, and there’s a scale question as well (billions versus millions). I want them both prosecuted but in terms of priorities I’d favor the police going after armed robbers over porch thieves.

I think this sort of thinking is why we have people who continue to vote against their own self interests. The fact is we really don't have enough information to make meaningful conclusions about which party is causing more harm with insider trading. It would take a team of accountants and lawyers years to confidently measure this. A random individual isn't going to assess this well. But because people confidently dr…

oh yeah sure, they're both equally bad. aha

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#232

Post by phs318u »

sph wrote: post #189
themafia wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. 31 million people just woke up and decided to hate America? Or.. was there a little more to that story?

The hatred has been there since the 70s, at the very least. Watched a great video on Iran from Rick Steves filmed in 2009, and when he visited a mosque there was a large sign calling for the death of America and Israel.

You know history goes back before the 70’s right?

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#233

Post by gosub100 »

tmountain wrote: post #218
gosub100 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is compromised by blackmail and we are fighting the war for Israel.

What could he possibly be blackmailed for at this point? There are zero consequences to anything he says or does.

child abuse

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#234

Post by InitialLastName »

beachy wrote: post #192
inaros wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Iraq-Iran war, in the eighties....who had Iran lining up a million soldiers in battle, for eight years, has shown Iran is ready for a level of endurance, the US cant even imagine.

The same scenario played out in Vietnam. The US could never succeed because: - the enemy was intermingled with the "friendly" civilians, and they couldn't be told apart, leading to everyone being treated brutally and potential friends becoming enemies - the enemy was prepared to fight to the death, for years if need be, and knew they could outlast US public opinion - the enemy knew they could prevail because of centu…

Don't forget:

- the enemy had plenty of material, technical and financial support from adversarial superpowers who were all too happy to see American lives, money and military resources wasted.

That external support is not fully scaled up yet (despite clear reports of Russian intelligence support for Iran), but you can bet it would be in the event of a major ground assault, occupation, and/or counter-insurgency quagmire.

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#235

Post by vmbm »

heyitsmedotjayb wrote: post #19

I'm not smart enough to understand why - but surely this isn't sustainable? At some point wont the price not reflect the reality of simply not having gas to put in your car? What is going on... The price of oil went down 10% yesterday, opened +0% today and is back to +4%...

It is very difficult to ship and store oil in the volumes that are relevant to modern economies. We are very much in a situation where some regions are business as usual, some regions can't get oil at any cost, and some regions have so much oil they are stopping production because they don't have any where to store it.

In terms of how this impacts prices, the headline number is usually Brent crude, but there are a number of different "flavors" with various geopolitical factors that influence price[1]. For example, the US market is going to respond differently then the Indian market. The former is a net exporter halfway across the globe from the conflict area, the later gets a substantial portion of their oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

If the conflict carries on for a while things will probably normalize across markets as production and shipping adjust to the new reality. But in the short term you are going to have some folks mildly inconvenienced by slightly higher prices, while other folks might not even be able to fill their tanks.

[]1 https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#236

Post by nostrademons »

eb0la wrote: post #159
Windchaser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most likely outcome is that they make huge paper profits that are then absolutely worthless because the dollar collapses Seems like it'd be pretty easy to diversify into inflation-protected assets after taking big profits. But I also don't see the dollar collapsing any time soon. The dollar's strength is built on the US economy, and the US economy is still one of the strongest in the world, with high productivity p…

One of the reasons behind the dollar strength is that the US has a huge population. Even if the central bank might does a bad job and make a mess of the economy, the activity of 350 million people is hard to ignore. Is it enough to _fully_ sustain the US dollar? Who knows, but at least there is a floor, even if everybody stopped using US dollars for international trade.

U.S. has only 4% of the global population.

I think this is a big part of both the impact of globalization and the U.S's waning power. Back around 1950, right after WW2, the "first world" (the developed west, not including Russia or Warsaw Pact countries) had a total population of just over 500M, and the U.S. was 150M of those, just under 1/3. And the remainder were largely dependent upon U.S. capital, machinery, and technology, having just bombed each other back to pre-industrial times.

Today, the developed world is about 3-4B people, and the U.S. is 350M of them, less than 10%. China alone has lifted about 500M people out of poverty and into the middle class in the last 2 decades, a population larger than the total population of the middle class in the U.S. The population of Asia is around 4.86B, 15x the size of the United States, and an increasingly large number of them are living a lifestyle close to what Americans enjoy.

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#237

Post by hydrogen7800 »

tmountain wrote: post #214
tombert wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot, but she did deserve to be punished. Her defense tried to act like she innocently and accidentally sold some stock based on something a friend told her, but they neglect to mention that she her career started as a stock broker and as such should have been familiar with regulations, and she was on the New York Stock Exchange’s board of directors during the scandal. It's not some innocent mom who acci…

She was targeted because James Comey wanted to leverage her fame for his own career advancement. Not justifying what she did, but it’s no coincidence that she got roped.

I may simply be ignorant of the details of this case, but I never heard James Comey's name until ~October of 2016.

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#238

Post by NegativeLatency »

tombert wrote: post #176
NegativeLatency wrote: post #106

Martha Stewart was sent to prison for less

I hear this a lot, but she did deserve to be punished. Her defense tried to act like she innocently and accidentally sold some stock based on something a friend told her, but they neglect to mention that she her career started as a stock broker and as such should have been familiar with regulations, and she was on the New York Stock Exchange’s board of directors during the scandal. It's not some innocent mom who acci…

I'm not saying she's innocent, I just think that we should apply the same standards to everyone, or change/remove the standards.

Re: Mystery jump in oil trading ahead of Trump post draws scrutiny

#240

Post by philistine »

linhns wrote: post #166
philistine wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the petrodollar is irrelevant, why is Iran insisting that anything transiting the straight of Hormuz be bought using the Chinese Yen?

Yuan. Not Yen. Iran shouldn’t be insisting anything.

But why is Iran insisting the Chinese Yuan be used? Because they're idiots?

Because Petrodollars make our global economy work, and Iran wants their partner China to be in control! If Americans lose sight of their need to maintain their role as *THE* lingua franca of international trade, then all hell is lost. The US cannot afford its military without massive consequences if it can't raise extraordinarily cheap debt through purchases of oil in US dollars immediately turned around to buy US debt to maintain that money's value.

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