The flow of money into commodities is comparable with the flow of money into mutual funds in the 1980s and 1990s. It's like steroids, pumping up prices and leading people to talk about super-spikes to $100 a barrel or more. |
The market is in the grip of what I would call invisible hands: the investment community and the speculative community. We're going higher. It's just a matter of where. |
The market is treading water right now. I'm not convinced that we know about the biggest factor of all -- gasoline demand. |
The nationwide average could easily push through $2.50 per gallon this week. |
The next 30 days are going to be hairy. But there's a lot of capacity coming back on in May. |
The only way you're going to pay $4 a gallon for gas is by returning a rental car without filling it up. |
The story of the (oil) market these days is wild swings. Geopolitical events could surface at any moment that could lead to a temporary spike. |
The wheels are in motion. It just takes a while for it to deluge into retail. |
There are concerns that a runaway California [gasoline] market could borrow some East of the Rockies gasoline and send futures higher in the next few days. |
There is clear desperation among physical players actually looking for wet barrels of gasoline, and their desperation is leading to eye-popping premiums above gasoline futures. |
There is genuine concern at the moment. I've got a hunch my nectarines from California are going to cost a bit more in the next few months. |
There was a sell-off at the end, a counterintuitive sell-off, a contrarian one, on a day there was some reason to worry about supply. |
There's a fascination with crude oil, but people don't burn crude. They burn gasoline and diesel. |
There's no question we're looking at prices that are going higher. |
These are markets where overreaction follows overreaction. It's manic or it's depressive. It never gets even. You have the equivalent of a Dow that moves 4,000 or 5,000 points in a month. |