"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:46:45 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

All true, but I stand by my original comment. Oil is one commodity which
should be untouchable by recreational speculators. I'm talking illegal, go
to jail, that sort of thing. You know I'm right.

There are no "recreational speculators". Everyone who trades
commodity futures is doing it for business reasons of one sort or
another. You may not agree that all of their reasons are valid but
the commodity futures market is absolutely essential both to the
producers and consumers of any given commodity. The markets
themselves help to dampen out large daily price swings by evening out
supply and demand over time, and so called speculators are part of
that process - just like the stock market. It would be more accurate
to call them short term investors.


Sorry, Wayne, but in fact, there are recreational spectators. A mutual fund
investing in the oil futures market - the manager (and the fund's customers)
are all recreational spectators. About a year ago, a Barron's article
mentioned that on some days, players (let's use that shorter description
from now on) place more trades than oil companies who are legitimately
trying to hedge on behalf of their firms.

However, you're right about "business reasons of one sort or another". The
problem is that "one sort" hurts you and I. No matter who plays in these
markets and whether they win or lose, there's someone who makes out like a
bandit: The clearinghouses.