[TorrKing]

Beeing a recently convert to the peak oil "religion" I find it hard to believe sometimes as the prices constantly goes up and down. I believe that this may be syptomatic of how people in general feel and maybe even some governments. It is easy to miss the big picture since the market works as it does.

Anyone feeling the same? Does this hide the reality of PO for most people?

Torjus Gaaren

[Doly]

The prices for anything in the stock market fluctuate, that's the nature of it.

The best way of looking at long-term trends is looking at monthly, or even better, yearly averages.

[Cynus]

From what I've read, we can expect large price fluctuations as excess capacity withers. In this environemnt we can expect even miinor events to have large effects. I would assume this phenomena explains why the daily weather reports have such a huge impact on oil price lately. When the weather forecast for the next 3 days in just the northeastern US can have a 1 - 2 dollar effect on the global price of oil, it tells me something is screwy.

[FairMaiden]

I'm not sure but I think the gov't propaganda has had an impact on the average oil consumer. We've been told repeatedly that the big bad OPEC is responsible for playing with the world price (limiting supply). And that the oil companies are price gauging. Its always someone doing something they shouldn't...except the consumer themselves. After all, we are keeping the economy growing!

[donshan]

Fluctuations in oil-price obscures reality?

Whose reality counts? In the price of oil it is the "reality" of the oil traders that is all that moves the market in the short term. Most care little about any broad fundamentals or strategic view. Trader's are like surfers on Banzai Beach in Hawaii, trying to catch a wave. They can make money with oil going up or by selling short when oil heads down.
Their buying and selling both magnifies and obscures the reality.

Look at the chart of oil prices at this link ( and I hope it works):
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=$WTIC,uu[l,a]waclyyay[pb50!b200][vc60][iLh14,3!La12,26,9]&pref=G

Oil is both going up and going down, depending on your time frame. To a short term trader it is going down. To me the chart clearly shows oil going up in along term trend, shown by the moving average line. Ignore the short term fluctuations and follow the trend.

A recent quote by K Deffeyes who literally wrote the book on oil:

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/358


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'K')enneth Deffeyes: Well, it’s not oil running out, it’s just that the growth in oil production stops, and as we go over the top of the curve we don’t have any growth for a while and then it starts to go down. But the kinds of things that I am predicting are increased volatility in price because when the demand on the system approaches the capacity of the system little things mean a lot; a SARS scare that cuts back on air transport, an unusually warm winter in the American northeast will cut back on the demand for oil and the price falls much more than just that change in demand. On the other hand, an abnormally cold winter and suddenly the price shoots up. So two years ago, three years ago, over one week the price of natural gas here in the northeast of the United States doubled over one weekend, the price doubled. So we’re going to see very large volatility. My sarcastic line about that is that OPEC can no longer control the price of oil. So the good news is OPEC is not in charge of oil…the bad news is nobody’s in charge of the price of oil. "