Speculators Now Driving Down Oil Futures Prices

In anticipation of rising future supply and/or declining future demand, oil speculators are now driving oil prices down for December 2016 crude oil futures contracts. In just the last three weeks, futures prices for delivery in 2016 have fallen by more than 5%, from $94.75 per barrel in early April to below $90 in recent trading.

Are these the same destabilizing, market-manipulating oil speculators who are supposedly to blame for oil prices rising in the short term? Or are these the “good” speculators whose trading leads to falling prices, as opposed to the “bad” speculators whose trading raises prices?

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About Mark J. Perry 262 Articles

Affiliation: University of Michigan

Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan.

He holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University in Washington, D.C. and an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Since 1997, Professor Perry has been a member of the Board of Scholars for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan research and public policy institute in Michigan.

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