Grandes investidores viram costas a Israel

[mval2002]

Os especuladores não são os únicos responsáveis pelas subidas, mas uma parte da responsabilidade é sem dúvida deles.

Pergunto na minha inocência se para o exemplo do petróleo, onde a tendência de longo prazo é de subida, um limite à margem, um travão à especulação não poderia ter ajudado a controlar esta escalada e adiar um pouco mais o inadiável?

[Ulisses Pereira]

"Speculators Aren't the Whole Problem"

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
6/12/2008 8:45 AM EDT



"We've got to blame speculators for everything. Lehman's (LEH - commentary - Cramer's Take) down? Speculators. Corn's up? Speculators. Oil's soaring? Speculators. AIG's (AIG - commentary - Cramer's Take) slumping? Speculators.

Give me a break.

Over any short period, speculators using lots of margin can overwhelm any market. The law that Sen. Joe Lieberman proposes banning institutions from the commodities markets is the kind of nutty legislation you get when you have prices being erratic and going in the "wrong" direction of the "longs" and the "consumers."

Of course we want lower oil prices (unless we own oil) and we want lower grain prices (unless we sell grain). Have institutions exacerbated the direction of these commodities, as Lieberman attests? Sure. In the same way that pension funds that have placed money with dedicated short funds have exacerbated the downward pressure on some stocks of the very same companies that they are investing for.

To which I say, again, there are two sides to every trade. Lieberman's theory works under some grand conspiracy that says institutions can corner the market by buying a whole host of commodities and permanently taking them off the market. But there is such a thing as "profit-taking," and there are always producers who over time can overplant and overproduce just about anything except oil, which has been in permanent short supply now for several years.

The dollar, speculation, margin rules, blah blah blah. Yes, they account for some of the moves that are in the "wrong" direction. There's some blame. It would be better just to raise margins -- we always seem to be unwilling to do this in this country because it hurts volumes -- but passing a law that everyone knows wouldn't work is just a crummy idea.

You want lower oil prices? Allow drilling for more oil and gas and waive the environmentalist stranglehold for a couple of years. Don't pass legislation aimed ultimately to raise stock prices or lower oil prices.

It is silly, and it just won't work.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned. "

(in www.realmoney.com)