Today I saw the following two headlines: “Bank Sees Economic Link Between Commodity Prices” and “Speculation and Speculators don’t cause oil price swings.”
Oddly enough both stories were citing the same study produced by analysts with JP Morgan.
Turns out the first headline is a little bit of a tease and the bulk of the stories citing the study (not available yet on the JP Morgan Website) says it dismisses the notion that speculators caused the price spike in crude oil in 2008.
The more recent data provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission seems to support that view as well. But on the same day I received an e-mail from an organization called Americans for Financial Reform. They were calling on added regulations to rein in speculators and provided a link to a story on a University of Rice study it claims provides proof that speculation was to blame. It also links to the study.
I wrote about the study at the time and spoke to its author, who made no such claim. In fact a careful look at the study, if anything, argues against that notion.
And since the CFTC has begun putting out additional data, which seems to dispute the speculators are evil notion, even some of the loudest Congressional scapegoat artists have been relatively quiet. However, it doesn’t seem to matter to some people.
