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necron99
01-04-08, 03:19 PM
I don't even know what to make of this one...



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080104/ts_alt_afp/commoditiesoilpriceoffbeatA lone trader out to win a little fame made the purchase that took oil prices to the historic 100 dollars a barrel level this week but he lost 600 dollars on the deal, analysts said. The trader has been named by US and British media as Richard Arens who runs a one man oil brokerage, ABS.

"The magic figure was hit apparently on the back of a single trade, rumoured to be a local intent on fame," Sucden analysts wrote in a commentary Thursday on the record breaking deal.

... He later sold on the contract for slightly below 100 dollars, taking a 600 dollar loss.

"It was just for the form; he wanted to be the first in the world to buy oil at 100 dollars," said Antoine Heff, an analyst at NewEdge....[Necron99 comment] It's as if the press service is pushing the financial equivalent of the "Lone gun nut" conspiracy theory in the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK etc.

But, come on -- this guy thought it an "honor" to buy $100 oil! Yeah, that's a natural reaction there. It's like this article was written to be disbelieved.

Assuming this Richard Arens guy exists, I wonder if he's now going to get death threats from businessmen and economists of the 'Greenspan' school -- who believe that if we just massage certain economic numbers so that they don't hit startling benchmarks, then the sheer momentum of "consumer confidence" will pull the economy through any kind of crisis or systematic breakdown...

necron99
01-04-08, 03:21 PM
...I mean, if this guy really "wanted to be the first in the world to buy oil at 100 dollars", well nothing was stopping him from paying $100 for oil anytime during the past six or eight years... I'm sure somebody would have taken him up on that deal !

zoog
01-04-08, 04:40 PM
...I mean, if this guy really "wanted to be the first in the world to buy oil at 100 dollars", well nothing was stopping him from paying $100 for oil anytime during the past six or eight years... I'm sure somebody would have taken him up on that deal !

The articles about this conveniently fail to point out that it was very near $100 anyway, so it didn't take much for one guy to put it over $100, ever so briefly.

It's like being behind the guy who burns rubber at the green light and rockets down the street in a cloud of exhaust. You plod along at a reasonable speed and catch up with him at the next red light. Sure he grabbed everyone's attention, but did he really have any lasting effect on the general flow of traffic?

bart
01-04-08, 05:20 PM
Assuming this Richard Arens guy exists, what a stroke of genius to only spend $600 and get national press and recognition...