Financial Betting Articles

There's a special secret Senate committee investigating the recent rise in oil prices. ChoiceCuts broke into the Watergate Hotel and spoke to its very own Deep Throat...

CC: So, how goes the Thing?
DT: The Thing? Yeah... Doc says it should clear up in about a week if I keep applying the cream.
CC: No, The Thing, the oil Thing.
DT: Oh That Oil Thing. Oh, yeah, well, we got a lead on those price hikes and the net's closing in.
CC: OPEC? Supply versus demand? The weak dollar?
DT: None of those things... turns out it's some twenty-three-year-old kid. Well, a bunch of them, actually.
CC: I don't understand. How?
DT: They keep buying the stuff.
CC: For their cars?
DT: Only if their cars are the size of Alaska. Hergh, hergh, hergh - ow, that hurts the rash. No, these little punks are sitting on bank trading floors just buying the stuff. Millions of barrels of the stuff. Now, tell me that's normal?
CC: Erm, well, it is, isn't it?
DT: What are you, a Commie? It's perverted. Buying oil futures when they don't need to?
CC: Well, that's what traders do. They buy if they think it's going up and, erm, sell when they think it's going down.
DT: Jeez, you're all over this. We could do with a professor like you on the Senate Subintellectual-Committee. When can you start?

CC: Look, the president of OPEC said he wouldn't be surprised if oil hit $200 a barrel. Are you telling me oil traders aren't going to have some fun running it up to that, taking profits all the way up?
DT: This OPEC guy sounds like The Mr Big we been looking for. He's pulling the strings, you say?
CC: Well, he's pulling something. They're holding tens of millions of barrels in tankers off the Gulf coast to keep supply tight and the Saudi's told President Bush to put his request for increased oil production in his drill hole. Remember what you told Woodward and Bernstein?
DT: Never eat yellow snow?
CC: No.
DT: Follow the Yellow Brick road? No, I said that to Elton. And what do I get in return? Mind, even the nurse said, "What did you expect with a name like yours?"

CC: No - follow the money. It's a commodity bubble.
DT: You mean it's just going to keep rising?
CC: Like a roller-coaster to the moon until it bursts like a supernova.
DT: It's going to burst?? When? When??
CC: OK, you didn't hear this from me...
DT: You're miming?
CC: No, I mean, don't quote me on this, it's off the record. The time to sell oil...?
DT: Yeah?
CC: The moment that signals the absolute top of the market?
DT: Yeah??
CC: The peak of this commodity Everest?
DT: Tell me! Tell me!!
CC: [WHISPER] ...When I buy oil.
DT: You mean...?
CC: Yeah, I'm - sob! - the worst goddam trader in the market. Wer-hurgh... boo hoo...
DT: Poor baby, don't you worry so. Here, try my cream. Just don't make any rash decisions. Rash! Hergh hergh hergh - ow!

Oil too volatile for you this week? Stick with the FTSE. It traded in an average daily range of just 88.3 points in May, down from 93.6 in April and 130.4 in March.

However that's still more vol than we saw this time last year. May 07 gave us a relatively sedate 58.9 point average daily range.

Although the FTSE lost an average of 1.7 points a day in May, it still closed up 10 times (and fell 9).

As well as keeping the doctor away, an apple a day also keeps the dentist away. The juice from apples kills 80% of decay-causing bacteria! Me, I go for Braeburns every time.

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