More oil leaking from the barrel.

"The drop offered further evidence that investors who only a week and a half ago drove prices to a new high above $147 a barrel are now quickly pulling money out of the market. It was also a reminder that, with traders for the moment turning bearish, the absence of major news can push the market down — just as incremental supply concerns previously drove prices sharply higher.

"This is more of the long exit from the market by the hedge funds," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates. "A lot of these investors who have been supporting prices are hitting the road."

In Washington, the Senate voted 94-0 to move ahead with a plan that would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to set limits on trading in oil markets by certain large investors.

A number of Democratic lawmakers and other critics have blamed the historic rise in prices on speculators that they suggest are manipulating prices."  Yahoo news

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"A lot of these investors who have been supporting prices are hitting the road."

"And may the road rise up to meet yah!"  (Leprechaun Talk  )

My hat's off to all of you who can continue to believe that fundamentals and trivial news can explain the oil futures markets' action in the last couple of weeks.  it takes real discipline to maintain that kind of position in the face of reality.  The ability to do that reminds me of the way the Bush Administration insisted that various nonsense descriptions of the war in Iraq were true.  The Jacobins are still clinging to these ideological positions.  Bravo!  Hang in there!  Don't let reality push you around!

The last month or so I have been watching the various TV financial market networks.  Marvelous!  These "analysts" by and large have no idea at all as to what really moves the various markets.  They just mouth the received wisdom and describe what happened as a forecast of what will happen.

They are not a bit different than the sports figures you see interviewed on the tube.  "And how is it that you won today?"  Well, we ran well.  We passed good (sic). We threw a lot, and we won."  "Well, thank you."  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

Two workers for an oil services firm in Nigeria were kidnapped Friday:

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, July 25 (Reuters) - More than a dozen gunmen in speedboats kidnapped two oil engineers, one from the Philippines and one Nigerian, in the main oil industry city of Port Harcourt on Friday, security sources said.

The men were working for Damas Oil and Marine Services, an offshore oil services firm, a private security contractor in the oil industry said. He said no ransom had yet been demanded and that the kidnappers were not known to the security forces.

[Duncan Kinder]

As previously suggested, oil prices are not solely subject to supply and demand, but also are sensitive to disruption in Nigeria:

Oil prices rose on Monday after rebels said they had sabotaged two pipelines in Nigeria, a major exporter of crude, and analysts said that the market was also tracking developments over Iran.