Saturday, May 24, 2008

Reasons For the "Fire" to the Oil

What are the main reasons for the current “fire” to the Oil? I know of the three most important reasons:

1) Nagging concerns about stagnating output in Russia and other producers that are outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

2) Oil prices are driven upwards because of the weakening dollar which prompted investors to use oil as a hedge against the falling currency, creating a vicious cycle.

3) American consumers are actually sitting on a record amount of cash, although that's exactly the problem. They're just holding it, not spending or investing it. The amount of readily available consumer cash jumped as much as 18 percent in the past year to hit a record level of almost $8.5 trillion. This cash balance includes saving deposits, institutional money markets, time deposits of less than $100,000, and retail money market funds.

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