Qualora ci fosse stato ancora bisogno di conferme, gli ultimi giorni ci hanno detto che stiamo assistendo ad una possibile bolla speculativa sul petrolio... che dire, pare che si passi da una bolla all'altra di questi tempi, anche perche', in tutto questo trambusto, non e' che la liquidita' sia venuta meno, e' venuta meno in alcuni segmenti del mercato, ma in altri e' piu' copiosa che mai.

Date un occhiata ai due articoli che allego qui sotto.

Is Oil the Next 'Bubble' to Pop?

By GUY CHAZAN and NEIL KING JR.
June 4, 2008; Page C6

Is there an oil bubble that is about to burst?

Some big voices on Wall Street think so, predicting the oil market could tilt sharply south soon if the U.S. dollar strengthens and demand for crude oil weakens in some key consuming countries. Tightness on the supply side could also ease, they say, as some big refineries and new oil fields come onstream over the next few months and the outlook for the Chinese economy clouds over.

But don't count on a price plunge just yet. While oil has eased off its record of just over $133 nearly two weeks ago, to $124.31 currently, there are still strong reasons to believe that the benchmark U.S. crude could hover at about $120 a barrel well past summer.

At issue are deep disagreements over what is driving the run-up in oil prices.

In the search for scapegoats, many on Capitol Hill in the U.S. and elsewhere are now blaming oil-futures speculators, noting the vast cash inflows into commodity index funds. But those skeptical of a sharp price fall point to a raft of continued gloomy news on the fundamental supply-and-demand side, arguing that an already tight market isn't likely to loosen for months.

Like the Dot-Com Boom?

The bearish argument has grown increasingly loud over the past week. Lehman Brothers on Friday compared the rally to the one-upmanship of the dot-com boom: Wall Street analysts have repeatedly raised their price forecasts as oil prices have soared, driving new investor flows that have pushed prices to still-higher levels, leading to still-higher price forecasts. Lehman sees the "classic ingredients of an asset bubble," with financial investors driven by a "herd" instinct and chasing past performance.

Hedge-fund manager George Soros also has chimed in. "We are currently experiencing the bursting of a housing bubble and, at the same time, a rise in oil and other commodities which has some of the earmarks of a bubble," he said Tuesday in prepared testimony before the U.S. Senate. Mr. Soros cautioned, though, that a crash in oil markets was "not imminent."

Economists who have cited the dollar's fall as a key factor in the rising price of oil now argue that that linkage is set to reverse. With the dollar now showing signs of strength, and the fears of inflation ebbing, oil prices also should fall, they say. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comment Tuesday that further interest-rate cuts are unlikely gave the dollar another upward jolt.

To back its dot-com analogy, Lehman Brothers cites evidence that institutional investors, including sovereign-wealth funds, have been increasing their exposure to commodities. The investment house calculates that from January 2006 to mid-April 2008, more than $90 billion of incremental investor flows was devoted to assets under management by commodity indexes. It said for every $100 million in new inflows, the price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, increased by 1.6%.

Yet others dispute the view that the run-up in crude oil is investor-driven. "This is the price you get if supply doesn't expand for five years and demand continues to grow as it has done for the last four to five years," says Paul Horsnell, an analyst with Barclays Capital in London. Prices will "continue testing upward" unless the supply-and-demand picture changes substantially, he says.

Others have also disputed the evidence that investors are driving up the price of crude.

In written testimony to the U.S. Senate last month, Jeffrey Harris, chief economist of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that while futures-contract prices for WTI have more than doubled during the past 14 months, managed-money positions, as a fraction of the overall market, have changed very little.

"Speculative position changes have not amplified crude-oil futures price changes," he wrote. "More specifically, the recent crude-oil price increases have occurred with no significant change in net speculative positions." He also said there was no evidence that position changes by speculators "precede price changes" for crude-oil-futures contracts.

Seeking Their Footing

Mr. Horsnell and others contend that after their precipitous rise to $133, oil prices are now seeking a new equilibrium. Even the normally bearish Energy Department doesn't see prices falling far soon. Guy Caruso, head of the department's Energy Information Administration, cited continued tight global supplies Monday when he predicted that oil will stay above $100 a barrel through 2009.

The main factor cited for sustained high prices is the surprisingly steep fall so far this year in production from some of the world's key exporters, particularly Mexico, Russia and Venezuela. The big producers within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have largely held their output steady since late last year.

Despite declining demand in the U.S., the thirst for petroleum products -- above all diesel -- continues apace in much of the developing world.

China's Needs

Rocked by the recent earthquake, China is now scrounging for all available sources of diesel to power thousands of generators that have taken the place of downed power plants. Surging domestic demand among Persian Gulf countries also continues to nibble away at available oil exports.

"What will turn this around is a real change in what has pushed this up in the first place, which would be a notable shift on the supply-demand front," said Mr. Horsnell. "So far, we aren't seeing that."

Lehman is in the camp that expects the supply-demand balance to change in the coming months. New Saudi oil production should come onstream soon, as well as big new refineries that will ease bottlenecks and bring greater competition in oil-products markets. Russia is enacting tax breaks that many hope will lift stagnant oil production.

Meanwhile, oil-demand growth is expected to ease in fuel-hungry China, as the economic slowdown in its Western export markets takes hold. China also has been stockpiling fuel in the run-up to the Olympics, and with the Games over, imports might slow.

All this could "set the stage for a significant correction" in the oil price, says Michael Waldron, an analyst with Lehman. Yet even he predicts that may not happen before the end of the year.

June 7, 2008

Oil Prices Take a Nerve-Rattling Jump Past $138

By JAD MOUAWAD

The rise in oil prices turned into a stampede on Friday with futures jumping a staggering $11 a barrel to set a record above $138 a barrel. The unprecedented surge came as the dollar fell sharply against the euro and a senior Israeli politician once again raised the possibility of an attack against Iran.

Friday’s jump capped a second day of strong gains on energy markets, and fed suspicions that commodities might be caught in an investment bubble.

Oil prices have doubled in the last 12 months, and are up 42 percent since the beginning of the year. Oil futures surged $10.75, or 8 percent, to $138.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, their biggest jump since contracts began trading in 1983. The record rise brought a two-day jump of more than $16 a barrel, after Thursday’s 5.5 percent gain.

“This market is going to shoot itself in the foot,” said Adam Robinson, an energy analyst at Lehman Brothers. “It is searching for a price that will build a safety cushion in the system — either as inventories or as spare capacity. This takes time. But the market has gotten extremely impatient and is not willing to wait.”

The latest jump came as the dollar lost more than 1 percent against the euro amid bleak economic news that fanned recession fears. The unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent in May, the government said, the biggest increase in more than two decades.

Friday’s negative news pricked a budding sentiment on Wall Street that the financial system was on the mend, and stocks fell sharply. The Dow Jones industrials lost 394.64 points, or 3 percent, to 12,209.81, with financial stocks showing the biggest declines. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index fell 3 percent, its biggest drop since February.

The pronounced volatility in energy markets in recent weeks continued to puzzle traders. Prices kept rising despite a lack of shortages in the market and strong evidence of lower consumption in industrialized countries. But investors are caught in a bullish mood, focusing on the perceived risks to future oil supplies and the growth in oil demand from emerging economies, where fuel prices are subsidized.

Even as uncertainties abound about the fundamentals of the energy market, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East regained center stage after Israel’s transportation minister and a deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, said Friday that an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites looked “unavoidable” if Iran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Iran is the second-largest oil producer within the OPEC cartel and exports nearly two million barrels a day. Because the world has few supplies to spare, any interruptions in Iran’s exports could push prices to higher levels. The world currently has about three million barrels a day of spare capacity, and consumes 86 million barrels a day of oil.

“The return of the Iranian risk premium calls for a careful assessment of the potential oil supply impact of military strikes on Iran,” said Antoine Halff, an analyst at Newedge, an energy broker. The “comments bring home the point that the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program remains unresolved and that the risks of military confrontation are indeed increasing.”

Investors also reacted to the latest forecast by a large Wall Street bank that oil prices would keep rising. Morgan Stanley predicted that prices would spike to $150 a barrel in the next month because of strong demand in Asia.

The threat of a strike by Chevron’s workers in Nigeria also raised concerns that some production could be shut down. A similar strike by Exxon Mobil workers last April, which lasted a week, reduced Nigerian output by 800,000 barrels a day, or nearly a third of the country’s daily exports.

A strike may delay the start of Chevron’s 250,000 barrels-a-day Agbami project, the country’s largest offshore venture, which is to begin June 15.

One view gaining ground is that the commodity market is caught in a speculative bubble akin to the recent housing bubble or the technology bubble of the late 1990s. That theory was raised by politicians in Washington and by OPEC producers, who blame speculators for the staggering oil rally. Speaking before Congress recently, George Soros, a prominent hedge fund investor, said the current oil markets presented some characteristics of a bubble.

“I find commodity index buying eerily reminiscent of a similar craze for portfolio insurance, which led to the stock market crash of 1987,” Mr. Soros said this week. But he cautioned that an oil market crash was not imminent. “The danger currently comes from the other direction. The rise in oil prices aggravates the prospects for a recession.”

But many analysts say that fundamentals, not speculation, are driving prices.

“I don’t know how else to say it, this is not a bubble,” Jan Stuart, global oil economist at UBS, said. “I think this is real. There is a whole bunch of commercial buyers out there who are spooked and are buying. You are an airline, right now, you’re scared. I don’t see who would buy at these prices unless they need to.”

Jeffrey Harris, the chief economist at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who was speaking before a Senate committee last month, said he saw no evidence of a speculative bubble in commodities. Instead, Mr. Harris pointed to a confluence of trends that has contributed to the oil price rally, including a weak dollar, strong energy demand from emerging economies, and political tensions in oil-producing countries.

“Simply put, the economic data shows that overall commodity price levels, including agricultural commodity and energy futures prices, are being driven by powerful fundamental economic forces and the laws of supply and demand,” Mr. Harris said. “Together these fundamental economic factors have formed a ‘perfect storm’ that is causing significant upward pressures on futures prices across the board.”