Martin Kronicle

I was on Fox Business News a few months ago for “Street Fight.” You can see for yourself who you think was more prepared. (Hint: It wasn’t the other guy.)

The President had RENEWED drilling permits that had been put on hold, they were not NEW permits that would have ultimately lead to higher supply in oil.

– The oil market needs to have Frank/Dodd enacted to put a halt to HFT. We don’t need higher fees.
– Margins have been higher for investors forever. Margins are much lower for end-users.

President Obama has put the country in a much worse situation by drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), mostly for his political benefit. The last thing President Obama wants will be high gasoline prices coming into Election campaign season. Now should we have a real emergency on our hands, we have less “dry powder” because it was spent for political capital. That’s not leadership by any measure.

Like currency interventions, trying to bolster the near term supply will not affect distant prices, and tapping the SPR will fail. Moreover, higher prices in the deferred months encourage STORAGE – which takes supply AWAY from the cash market. Why? If the front months are lower than the deferred months in the commodities calender, owners of physical crude oil are encouraged to store the crude oil now to obtain higher prices later.

The long-term drop in demand for crude oil will come from tax credits for alternative energy sources, approving near-term crude oil drilling permits, and most of all, conservation by Americans. That’s how President Obama can create an national energy policy that is efficacious now and for future administrations.

The market premium in crude oil prices above the factors of supply & demand is determined by global forces…not a central bank, nor some mystical commissar. The futures market is not supposed to be based upon supply and demand, but the threats and dangers to global supply and demand.

When all the analysis is done, hedgers and investors affect the first function of the commodity futures market which is to transfer risk between themselves willingly. In the process, price discovery occurs, the second function of commodity futures markets.

The same argument can be made for any discount the market participants determine by their collective buying and selling. Market participants include buying and selling hedgers, and buying and selling investors.

For more insight from someone other than me, Reuters analyst John Kemp has written extensively on crude oil trading and the factors involved in the overall pricing mechanism.

I don’t care what they say, that’s Howard in the light blue…

Where does he fall to…whose trading desk is that?

I saw the Born In The USA tour at Giants Stadium. I was in the 11th row right behind NYC Mayor Ed Koch and NJ Governor Tom Kean. You could feel a punch from the sax when Clarence really went for it. And with the hometown NJ crowd causing the stadium to sway while rocking to the music, I swear I could smell his breath from the stage as he wailed on the sax that night. RIP.

I interviewed Todd Harrison about his new book at his office in NYC last week. He is the current CEO of Minyanville Media and former President of Cramer Berkowitz.

The book is called The Other Side of Wall St. and it’s an amazing memoir about a guy who had to carve it out of stone.