Would Oil Prices Really Fall If Speculation Was Reined In?

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Fuente: Yahoo finance.

If raising the margin requirement-or downpayment-on silver contracts helped cool speculation in the metal this week, could it do the same thing for runaway oil prices?

Silver has plunged 20 percent in recent days, in part due to the sharp increase in the amount of money investors are required to put down to buy the metal.

The whole commodity sector, in fact, is going through a major pullback this week as worries about a slowdown in the global economy are prompting investors to scale back on risky trades.

But while the selloff in silver, at least, is being linked partly to higher margins, oil prices move on more fundamental reasons such as supply and demand. Oil was lower on Wednesday, for instance, because of a bigger-than-expected increase in US crude supplies.

So raising margin requirements on oil-which has been tried before-wouldn't do much to bring prices lower.


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