Never Trust A Banker About Oil Prices
In recent weeks I’ve commented on the powerful bullish forces that have combined in oil and oil stocks and your need to increase your exposure to them. So, before going on to other topics, this has to be the start of any column until further notice, despite the weakness in stock indexes overall.
OPEC and particularly Saudi Arabia continue to drop not so quiet hints about the importance of higher oil prices – for the cartel and the upcoming IPO of Saudi Aramco. In case anyone might have forgotten about their one-shot chance to remake their entire economy and culture, another ‘leak’ of Saudi oil reserve numbers was served up in the past week – a positive one, of course.
Many of the analysts who previously were pessimistic about the rise in oil prices have been slowly and steadily raising their projections. That should neither encourage us or bother us, as bank analysts have a dismal record of correctly projecting prices much into the future. One should always trust a trader first; whose obligation is to his own investments and money and not to retaining the respect of the community or keeping the job. Always remember: An analyst’s first priority is not to be wrong, while a trader doesn’t care if he’s wrong or right, only if he’s got the right side of the trade and making money.
Similarly, the speculative trade from hedge funds continues to be almost uniformly long – a fact that used to bother me much more in the days when bank proprietary trade desks dominated the speculators. In those days, their own positions would often be in conflict with sales, and, Chinese wall or not – could make for some very sticky and fast reversals of positioning inside the banks.
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