Margin Hikes to Fight Pain at the Pump?

Uh oh.

Get ready for this – they are connecting the dots.  They’re starting to figure out that futures exchanges can be extremely, shall we say….influential, on the prices of highly speculated-upon commodities.

Oil is not quite as fun-and-games as silver had become, but Main Street is taking note of the efficacy of last week’s spec-fighting action…

From the New York Post:

A slick but valuable lesson was taught this week in the silver market. The CME Group, the parent company of NYMEX, raised margin requirements by 84 percent for the precious metal over the last two weeks…

Oil trades on the NYMEX, which is owned by the CME. It is time to stop dancing around the subject and begin to fight oil speculators. Increasing margin requirements for crude, much like with silver, will drive crude prices lower.  There are no negatives here.

Should more of the mainstream press carry the story of how silver was broken and draw an analogy to oil futures, the exchanges could find themselves in the midst of an even bigger political spotlight than they are currently inhabiting.

Keep an eye on this story, this could be big.

Source:

Time to Take Crude Action (NYP)