by smiley » Mon 20 Dec 2004, 19:16:16
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s of Friday, 10 Dec. 2004, at 1PM CST oil futures are dropping substantially. Why is this happening when OPEC just announced a production cut? Anyone know? Thanks in advance.
Shannymara. I had to wait to last Friday to be sure but it was "short selling". I'll try to explain that.
Oil is sold in contracts. Last Friday was the end of the January contract. That means that after that day all trading is stopped and all deliveries have to be allocated.
Say the price of oil is $50 today. Now I think that the price is going to decrease this month. You think that it is going to increase. What I can do then is draw up an agreement. I will sell oil to you at $50 and promise to deliver that oil to you at the end of the month. But I don't have any oil. I just gave you an paper I.O.U. Now suppose that I'm right and the price of oil drops to $46. Then I buy some real oil at the end of the month for $46 and give it to you. That would mean that I made a profit of $4 since you payed me $50. This is a very simplistic description of short selling.
On the other hand you can go "long". If I expect the oil price to rise I can buy oil. I don't really need oil but I expect to sell it again at a higher price. However I have to get rid of these contracts before the end of the trading month because otherwise I might end up with a mammoth-tanker in my backyard.
So the end of the trading month is a very important event. Those who went "long" need to get rid of their contracts and those who went "short" need to cover their short positions.
When oil was at $55 too many people were long. These people had to ged rid of their positions and the price dropped to $47 at the end of the trading month. When oil was at $41 too many people were short and they had to cover their positions at the end of the month. This caused the price increase to $46.
So while the price has moved back and forth $15 dollars not much has really happened in market fundamentals the past two months. It just reflects a shift in the expectations of the speculators.