As part of a book I’m working on, I’ve spent some time wading through the econometric literature on speculation in commodity markets, oil in particular. This body of research tries to shed light on h…

In a post earlier this month, I showed that by some measures crude oil price volatility is nearing a low ebb historically, though looking at historical volatility in isolation can mask the magnitude …

Okay, so the title of this post is tongue-in-cheek: the U.S. president has far less power to influence gasoline prices than campaign-season banter would lead you to believe. But I figure if a sitting…

In my last post I discussed how trading volumes show a migration into ICE Brent from NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI), two of the world’s most watched crude oil benchmarks. The trend is part of Br…