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Risk and reward
From the (paid-subscription) Wall Street Journal: Geopolitical tensions have added roughly 20%, or about $15 a barrel, to the price of crude oil, OPEC acting secretary general Mohammed Barkindo told an OPEC-International Energy Agency workshop in Oslo. Mr. Barkindo pointed...
Running out of gas
A year ago, I predicted that oil prices would fall to around $40 a barrel this spring. Today’s (paid-subscription) Wall Street Journal has perhaps the best article I’ve read on why I got it so wrong—and why today’s $71 oil...
The China syndrome
In October I wrote that “growth in Chinese energy consumption—which most Chicken Littles use to explain why oil will soon cost $100+ a barrel—has stalled. In 2004 it increased by 17.5%; this year will see growth of well under 5%,...
Falling oil prices
Over the weekend it occurred to me that I haven’t written about oil prices for almost three months. I also realized why: this has been the summer of oil-market Chicken Littles, and with almost everyone convinced the sky is falling,...
About that house-price oil-price bubble
I’m definitely sticking to my $40-a-barrel guns: A sudden and mysterious drop in China’s oil consumption helped to push down the International Energy Agency’s estimate on Wednesday of global demand for this year. After growing 11 percent in 2003 and...
Going down (someday)
I think—hope—I’ve found an oil-price ally in Econbrowser James Hamilton: In response to the twin supply shocks coming from the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, oil rose to a current equivalent of $95/barrel in 1980. We then saw world...
The oil-price bubble
It doesn’t seem like two months ago that I wrote this: In many ways today’s oil market reminds me of the dot-com insanity, what with analysts like Goldman Sachs’ Arjun Murti channeling Henry Blodget, predicting $105-a-barrel “super spikes,” and scaring...
Why oil prices will fall
I’ve held off writing about oil because I figured common sense would at some point prevail. But it hasn’t, so here goes. I’ll make this as painless as possible. In many ways today’s oil market reminds me of the dot-com...
