Koop Mandooks and the Oil saga

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives approved a bill aimed at curbing “excessive energy-market speculation”. The bill, which passed 402-19, would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to consider using position limits, or constraints on the size of the stake each speculative investor can own, and raising margin requirements, the money required to trade (Our Finmin has scored a point here. For more on that read my post on http://themarketstoday.blogspot.com/2008/06/happy-beariness-where-is-bottom.html). The vote came after the record market rate of 140.39 to a barrel was set.

While it helped in easing the steam off oil by around a dollar, that it will not rise again and rise up to 150-170 as the OPEC President said, is a scenario only with the “Koop Mandooks ” or the frogs in the well as we say. The demand for oil has been on a rise ever since man can remember. That the speed of price hike may slow down by a mere 10% or odds is a given. But the impact this oil business is having on the world economy is devastating especially when it comes on the back of a back breaking Sub Prime crisis. While we were all watching the markets world over stabilizing post the Sub Prime crisis, the oil bomb hit us all hard and now it seems has taken over the stage from the Sub Prime in eating all the economic growth the world over.

The Dow yesterday fell a whopping 358.41 points, indicating that it is poised to remain sub 12,000 unless and until a wholesome recovery occurs in the economy (p.s. rephrase and read it as oil too). The S&P 500 fell by 2.93% (a higher than DOW fall in a long long while) while the NASDAQ fell by 3.33%.

Expect the greenback to weaken against both the Euro and the Yen. Though the Yen remains range bound in 105-108, I would bet on the strengthening of the yen to the narrower 105-106.50 range. The Euro as I have been saying, is difficult to beat below 1.55. The trends now indicate a reigniting of the 1.59 and 1.60 resistance levels. But wait……..If the whole world is in turmoil, how is the greenback suffering the most?? More on that later.