Wednesday 1 April 2009

Oil prices - where do they go from here?

The oil price has started to edge up. Prices are up 24 percent since they bottomed out in February. It doesn't look like much on this chart, but that is because the recent increase is overshadowed by the huge run up, followed by an equally huge crash in prices during the first half of last year.

4 comments:

London estate agent said...

So, up or down, Alice?

Mitch said...

gotta be up.

Anonymous said...

There are several conflicting forces at work. The inflation camp sees real assets (actual tangible stuff like oil) as a hedge against inflation. They are buying tangible commodities against inflation and against the expectation of rising domestic demand particularly in China and India.

The deflation camp sees falling demand in the developed economies as more important. They are bearish oil.

Personally I think there will be a lot of vol. In the six-month term I think it is going up, but it might be sideways or even down a bit for a while before that.

I am bullish oil below $50 anyway, and think deflation is a nonsense.

Anonymous said...

last year with jet fuel @$1400 m/tonne our local airport was v busy and often it was hyped on local tv news.Looking at the passengers many were elderly even some of the younger ones used sticks to walk and quite a lot were,shallwe say,a bit gormless looking imho many would appear incapable of actually working to have "acquired" the cash for their trip.
Work it out for yourself where the cash came from but with jet fuel; now $400 m/tonne where are they? How stupid do you have to be to travel@$1400 and stay at home @$400?
Furthermore by paying the higher price these idiots are bidding against theirselves by running up the cost of keeping warm at home.
As long as these losers are denied access to credit oil will stay low. Even if the authorities can pull off the same trick again andoil goes up a bit it will cycle down again-only much faster as more people understand the mechanism and make appropriate arrangements (buy oil co. shares or stock up when prices are low)