Wall Street stretched to new one-year highs Friday as investors weighed economic optimism with jitters about the pace of the rally amid the "quadruple witching," a big quarterly options expiration.
Investors readied for a moderately higher open on Wall Street Friday, as optimism about the economic recovery offset concerns about the recent surge in stocks.
Did you know you can invest in the weather? It's true. You can actually make money speculating that the temperature in Sacramento, California, will be warmer than it normally is. If that's too dull for your portfolio, you can put money down on the inches of snowfall next winter in Boston, Massachusetts, or the strength of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Stocks were set to open lower Monday as investors await a speech by President Obama about financial services reform and keep an eye on a China-U.S. trade spat.
Last year Andrew Hall, the head of Citigroup's energy trading unit, made over $100 million, making him one of the highest paid people on Wall Street.
Oil prices hit their highest level in a month Monday on hopes that the U.S. economy was finally on the road to recovery. Still, that recovery is taking a lot longer than oil traders had hoped. Prices are nowhere near their all-time high of $147 a barrel a year ago.
Oil jumped more than 5% to near $67 a barrel Thursday as economic data sparked fresh optimism that the recession may be bottoming out.
Word is that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission is set to do an about-face on the role speculators play in setting oil prices. According to the Wall Street Journal, a CFTC study set to be released next month will find speculators to blame for last year's high prices. Presumably, the study will provide some intellectual justification for the Obama administration's plan to rein in oil speculators.
The Nasdaq surged Friday and the broader market struggled at the end of the first down week in a month for Wall Street.
Hop on your favorite broom. Let out your best cackle. Cuddle up with a black cat and twitch your nose like Samantha. Quadruple witching day is almost here!
Wall Street stretched to new one-year highs Friday as investors weighed economic optimism with jitters about the pace of the rally amid the "quadruple witching," a big quarterly options expiration.
Investors readied for a moderately higher open on Wall Street Friday, as optimism about the economic recovery offset concerns about the recent surge in stocks.
Did you know you can invest in the weather? It's true. You can actually make money speculating that the temperature in Sacramento, California, will be warmer than it normally is. If that's too dull for your portfolio, you can put money down on the inches of snowfall next winter in Boston, Massachusetts, or the strength of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Stocks were set to open lower Monday as investors await a speech by President Obama about financial services reform and keep an eye on a China-U.S. trade spat.
Last year Andrew Hall, the head of Citigroup's energy trading unit, made over $100 million, making him one of the highest paid people on Wall Street.
Oil prices hit their highest level in a month Monday on hopes that the U.S. economy was finally on the road to recovery. Still, that recovery is taking a lot longer than oil traders had hoped. Prices are nowhere near their all-time high of $147 a barrel a year ago.
Oil jumped more than 5% to near $67 a barrel Thursday as economic data sparked fresh optimism that the recession may be bottoming out.
Word is that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission is set to do an about-face on the role speculators play in setting oil prices. According to the Wall Street Journal, a CFTC study set to be released next month will find speculators to blame for last year's high prices. Presumably, the study will provide some intellectual justification for the Obama administration's plan to rein in oil speculators.
The Nasdaq surged Friday and the broader market struggled at the end of the first down week in a month for Wall Street.
Hop on your favorite broom. Let out your best cackle. Cuddle up with a black cat and twitch your nose like Samantha. Quadruple witching day is almost here!
U.S. stocks were poised for a slightly higher open Thursday, after a government report showed a slight uptick in jobless claims.
Can reinvigorated financial watchdogs take a bite out of surging oil prices?
The Obama administration plans to release updated details in the coming weeks to guide Congress on the best way to reshape the nation's financial regulatory system and prevent future collapses.
Stocks managed gains for the second week in a row despite tumbling Friday, as investors pulled back after the recent run.
Volatility may be the only certainty in the stock market these days.
President-elect Obama on Thursday kept up his blistering pace of naming top officials by announcing three people he will nominate as financial regulators.
Oil prices posted the biggest one-day dollar gain ever Monday as the dollar was punished by the government's $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan and big investors scrambled to fill obligations as the October contract expired.
Watch out, speculators: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is getting tough on crime. But since, as the CFTC has said, speculation hasn't pushed up prices, the crackdown will benefit its image more than the economy.
The government charged an oil trading firm Thursday with manipulating oil prices in the first complaint to be announced since the regulators began a new investigation into wrongdoings in the energy markets.
In the last three days oil prices have fallen by roughly $10 a barrel. Many analysts say slackening demand, or the threat of it, is the main culprit.
Some of the Democratic lawmakers leading the campaign to crack down on oil traders appeared Wednesday before the House Committee on Agriculture to explain their proposals.
The debate over whether oil prices are being driven by speculators in the futures market or by the fundamentals of supply and demand for the physical product slides right on by a central point. The question Congress and regulators should be focusing on isn't who is driving prices, but how prices are being driven.
Atlanta hedge fund manager Michael Masters has been a star witness in two recent Congressional hearings on how speculators are supposedly driving up oil prices. Masters and I don't see eye-to-eye on this issue, so I was surprised to get a call from him after my "Don't Blame The Oil Speculators" column went up on Fortune.com last week.
Before the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission starts scrutinizing the role that speculators may have played in driving up fuel and food prices, investigators may want to take a look at price swings in a commodity not in today's news: onions.
As Americans clamor for action on record oil and fuel prices, Democratic leaders in the House had promised to address energy issues this week, but they ended up without much to show for it.
"Make no mistake about it," U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said Monday while chairing a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "Excessive speculation in commodity markets is having a devastating effect at the gas pump that is rippling through our entire economy."
Close loopholes on foreign oil trading. Limit hedge funds from pouring money into the market. End oil speculation altogether.
Fed up with soaring oil prices and a chorus of people blaming Wall Street speculators, Congress is considering a host of rules aimed at limiting the inflow of investor money into oil contracts.
High oil prices, driven by decreasing crude supplies and increasing demand could drive the U.S. economy into a recession, George Soros, the fund manager and commodities investor, told lawmakers Tuesday.
Amid soaring oil prices that some say are caused by nothing more than rampant speculation, the government Thursday announced a wide ranging probe into oil price manipulation and said it would get more information on the effect investors are having on the market.
Federal regulators investigating possible price manipulation of crude oil are probably looking at what role collapsed energy giant Enron may have played, a former government official said Friday.
Oil prices fell over $4 Thursday, a day of wild price swings on the back of plummeting crude supplies, signs of a strong economy, and news the government is six months into an oil trading investigation.
Oil prices dropped below $129 a barrel Tuesday, falling sharply on a growing sense that soaring gas and oil prices have cut demand for fuel during the normally busy summer driving season
Speculation in the commodity markets took much of the blame for skyrocketing energy and food prices at a Senate hearing Tuesday
Retail gasoline prices increased for the sixth straight day and hit their fifth consecutive record, auto group AAA's Web site showed Monday.
A former director and head of the New York Mercantile Exchange's compliance committee pleaded guilty Tuesday to cheating clients.
Wild swings have been the norm in the stock market lately - as you may have noticed - with the Dow Jones industrial average posting triple digit moves nearly every trading day since the beginning of the year.
Oil futures dropped sharply Tuesday on mounting concerns that the U.S. economy may be heading toward a recession that would dampen demand for crude
Oil prices fell Tuesday on growing expectations that OPEC ministers will agree to raise crude production during a meeting next week.
Nasdaq's $61 million bid for the Boston Stock Exchange may have gotten scant attention from financial markets last week, but the deal spoke volumes about this key segment of the industry.
Oil prices fell for a fourth straight day Wednesday after the government reported an unexpected increase in crude oil inventories and a decline in supplies of gasoline and distillates including heating oil.
Oil and other petroleum futures surged Thursday amid supply concerns sparked by a decline in crude inventories at a key Oklahoma terminal and the confrontation between the West and Iran.
Oil prices rose in Asian trade Wednesday, gaining back a small portion of losses the last three sessions that were driven by easing supply concerns.
Oil prices dropped sharply Tuesday, ending below $80 a barrel, and other energy futures followed suit as investors locked in profits from the recent record-setting rally.
Energy futures fell Monday after a tropical depression that moved through the Gulf of Mexico late last week turned out to be a dud.
Oil futures retreated from record highs set overnight as traders awaited the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates and the government's report on crude oil and gasoline inventories.
Oil prices set another record and other energy futures rose Monday on expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut the benchmark federal funds rate, a move the market expects will support the economy and ensure its thirst for oil and gasoline.
Oil futures fell for the first time in ten sessions Friday after a rally that has driven prices to new highs that some analysts say are unrealistic.
Oil futures climbed in a late-session rally Monday as investors adjusted their holdings ahead of OPEC's Tuesday production-setting meeting.
Oil prices rose amid expectations that a government report due later Thursday would show declines in crude and gasoline inventories.
Energy futures fluctuated Thursday, buffeted by slower-than-expected economic growth figures and Wednesday's government report of a sharp decline in inventories.
Oil prices rose Monday as refinery outages in the United States stoked supply concerns again as the end of the summer driving season approaches.
Sentinel Management Group Inc., which oversees about $1.6 billion in assets, will not receive help from a commodities regulator to stop clients from pulling out their money, a move that could lead to big losses.
U.S. market regulators on Wednesday charged failed hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC and its former head trader, Brian Hunter, with trying to manipulate natural gas futures prices.
Last year Nasdaq and the NYSE targeted European stock exchanges. Now? Deal fever has struck U.S. derivatives markets.
Friday saw Deutsche Bank roll out not one, but seven commodity sector exchange-traded funds (ETFs), demonstrating that the bank and its partner PowerShares Capital Management believe that ETFs and commodities will remain hot in 2007.
On a sunny May day in an office park in the Surrey countryside outside London, a Ferrari-driving hedge fund manager named Aref Karim is scooping up contracts to buy oil in July for $75 a barrel, $3...
It's almost a given that when oil prices spike, so do rumors that hedge fund managers are causing the problem or making it worse.
In the summer blockbuster "War of the Worlds," ordinary Americans are forced to run for their lives when alien invaders wreak havoc on their planet.
Credit derivatives, complex investments based on the value of corporate bonds, have soared in popularity on Wall Street, sparking regulators to step up their scrutiny of this rapidly growing marketplace.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has called a meeting with certain Wall Street firms to discuss the credit derivatives markets, The New York Times reported.
An investor has sued money manager Pacific Investment Management Company, claiming the firm manipulated the price of June 10-year Treasury futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade, according to suit filed in a federal court.
A Philadelphia firm and its president have been charged by the government with fraud for fleecing investors in a commodity trading and hedge fund called Philadelphia Alternative Asset Management.
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Robin Hanson is a married, 44-year-old father of two who teaches economics at George Mason University, a commuter school with aspirations that's plunked amid the affluent sprawl of northern Virgini...
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Your August article ''You May Already Be a Victim of Fraud'' referred to difficulties encountered by one of your reporters in obtaining complaint information from the Commodity Futures Trading Comm...
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