Will President Obama's new oil plan work?

President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House, Tuesday, April 17, 2012, about his plan to reduce manipulation in oil markets. / AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY Will President Obama's new plan to reduce oil prices work? As a former commodities options trader, I'll hedge my answer with, a "yes, maybe".

Let's start with a recap on why oil prices have spiked from $75 per barrel in October to $104 today. In general, the increase is attributable to the general pickup in the U.S. economy, rising demand from China and India, and anxiety over Iran. The problem is that any and all of the factors driving up oil and gas prices can be magnified by speculation in the markets.

The advent of liquid futures markets makes it easy for banks, hedge funds, and even ordinary investors (through mutual and exchange-traded funds) to bet on the direction of oil. Although the same can be said of virtually every market these days, the reverberations can significantly impact the economy when it comes to the oil market. That's why I have previously advocated stricter "position limits," which caps the size of the bets that speculators can make, and higher margin requirements, as a way of controlling speculation. Such measures are a better lever for lowering oil prices than tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is meant for emergency supply disruptions.

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I know that traders hate this idea, but it's clear that speculators have come to play too large a role in a market that affects ordinary Americans and the economy as a whole. How big a role is subject to debate. But in 2008, when crude oil peaked at $147 per barrel, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission concluded that 81 percent of oil trading volume was conducted by speculators. According to economist Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, as recently as the end of February, "Speculators and traders, in effect, held a record 43.8 percent of U.S. inventories."

How could that be, you ask? A series of bipartisan, deregulatory efforts over the past two decades paved the way.

When I was a young trader in the 1980s, there were strict limits that prevented financial companies from moving the markets. Only those businesses that actually used the commodity, such as farms, airlines, manufacturers, and the folks that executed their trading activities, were allowed to enter the market and purchase or sell unlimited quantities.

In 1991, the CFTC eased up on the rules and exempted commercial traders, who argued that they, too, act on behalf of commodity users. In 2000, Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (known more disparagingly as "the Enron loophole"), which allowed investors to trade energy commodities on private electronic platforms.

A dozen years after the fact, there's insufficient political will to put the genie back in the bottle. Still, regulators can flex their muscles by adjusting the rules. Here's what President Obama seeks:

- Deter oil market manipulation by increasing six-fold the surveillance and enforcement staff at the CFTC

- Increase spending on technology to provide better oversight and surveillance of energy markets

- Increase civil and criminal penalties against firms that engage in market manipulation from $1 million to $10 million

- Authorize the CFTC to increase the amount of money that a trader must put up to back a trading position; Obama administration officials say that could help limit disruptions in energy markets

Of these recommendations, the last jumps out as having potentially the most impact. As Forbes' Peter Cohan recently noted, in February 2011, when commodities exchanges raised the amount of their own capital that speculators must set aside in order to trade, the price of oil fell 10 percent within a few months.

Regarding the first two proposals, Congress is unlikely to boost government spending before the November elections, so any move to significantly beef up the CFTC is almost certainly a nonstarter. Still, I'm sure that the commodities watchdog, like most regulators, is under-resourced. On the third recommendation, call me jaded but the idea that fines prevents manipulation seems far-fetched.

[uggugg]

For the past 30 years, they have been saying; we are running out of oil, but the oil sands are loaded with oil and will last for many years. The problem is; oil will need to reach $100 per barrel before it is feasible to take it out of the ground. Oil well owners will benefit from this idea tremendously, if indeed the statement about the oil sands are true and I believe it is true. Good business people are capable of working around most all problems, especially because of hundreds of year of accumulative experience, even in the stock market, so in the days of billionaires, it is not hard to understand the great manipulative idea of buying excessively to drive up prices to $100 and above to accommodate the oil sands market. I rest my case.

[lami987]

Obama's plan would definately work. It will work very well considering a whopping 43% of US oil inventory is held by traders and speculators. But Americans don't hold your breath because republicans in congress will never pass it. They will continue to blame Obama for high gas prices.

[rwsmith29456]

Drill our own oil. The price won't go down but at least we won't be dependent on the whims of a country like Iran.

[GoGoUsa]

The Republican's in the house will not let this pass. Anything that might help the economy would be construed as help to Obama and they will never do anything that might help Obama. Remember it's Party over country on the Republican side.

[PulSamsara]

Exactly. And it will make it more difficult to nudge their oil buddies for strategic price moves in an election year.

[Lucky12345678]

Traders will just move their operations overseas, this will not reduce the cost of oil. Check the current price of natural gas, supply and demand

[sharinlite]

Two things: (1) No, this will not work. This is purely a political stunt to convince gullible (here you have to read progressive)voters. I don't know if he knows or believes his handlers.
(2) How disgusting of you, CBS, to list a three year old headline...just because it is Rush...how about all of the corrupt cronies throughout the administration?

[martinhorzempa]

With a Dysfunctional congress we really can't expect any help for the President's initiative. The President's remarks today reflect the current thinking at the CFTC, that the CFTC's only mission is to regulate market price manipulation by individual players, while ignoring the much larger problem with speculation (investments) by index speculators such as commodities funds, ETFs, hedge funds, university endowment funds, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. By continuing to hold massive long only positions and constantly rolling them over they continue to drive the prices of all commodities higher. I estimate that this speculation in just the oil markets has cost the world in excess of $ 9 Trillion dollars in the past few years and cost the U.S. nearly $2 Trillion. The spreadsheet is here:
http://www.rbobgambit.org/Oil_Speculation_Premium.php
While the American public is focused on the oil markets, this speculation is causing havoc across the entire commodities complex as evidenced by record prices in the most agricultural and metals markets. While the President's efforts today are a good start he must follow through with action to stop index speculation in the commodities markets and in the swaps markets. He should execute the RBOB GAMBIT. Details are at www.rbobgambit.org . By rolling back the deregulation of the commodities markets he can return to the American public hundreds of Billions of dollars each year. Ending the SPECULATION TAX will do much more good for the economy than the reduction in payroll taxes.