From Chuck Cain
Hello Michael: I am tired of hearing about the speculators driving up the price of oil. People, mainly politicians and reporters, who dont bother to do their homework are giving this a lot of play. If they did proper research, they would find that, in futures, it is just as easy to speculate on a price drop by being short as it is to speculate on a price increase by being long. Speculation on the short side would have exactly the opposite effect described in the press and put downward pressure on prices. But the fact is, that speculators are about evenly divided between being long and being short, and thus, cancel each other out. This (PDF) comes from our friendly government regulator who has access to all sorts of position reporting by brokers and exchanges. I especially like the graph at the end. Regards, Chuck Cain
Thanks!
