Oil below $70 means that there’s nothing in the way of further price declines… down to $50!

Today, crude oil prices plunged below $70 a barrel. Oil has now lost more than 50% of its July record high.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery dropped as low as $69.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest trading level since Aug. 22, 2007.

Crude has now fallen 53 percent since surging to a record $147.27 on July 11.

Inventories are overflowing, demand is declining… and, more importantly, amateur speculators have lost their appetite. Today’s move… and the further decline I anticipate for the rest of the year… should clean up with the notion that the surge past $140 was due to “demand” from China and India: The first time oil was trading above $100, in the last days of 2007, it was due to a single trader upping the ante. It was

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Consumer Price InflationThe annual rate of increase in Latvian consumer prices was 15.7% in August 2008. Month on month the situation did imporve slightly, since prices decreased by 0.4% when compared with July. The average price of goods decreased by 0.9%, but the price of services continued to increase, and were up by 0.7%. Prices of vegetables and fuel fell, but the price of clothing, catering and rent were all up. Thus while the trend is for annual inflation to moderate, the news is far from unambiguous, with widespread secondary price shocks continuing to make their impact felt.

Food prices were down - by 2.2% - but this was mainly influenced by seasonal decreases in the price of fruit and vegetables and fruit. Bread, dairy products and cheese prices also fell. Fuel prices were down by 4.3%,

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by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaConsumer Price InflationThe annual rate of increase in Latvian consumer prices was 15.7% in August 2008. Month on month the situation did imporve slightly, since prices decreased by 0.4% when compared with July. The average price of goods decreased by 0.9%, but the price of services continued to increase, and were up by 0.7%. Prices of vegetables and fuel fell, but the price of clothing, catering and rent were all up. Thus while the trend is for annual inflation to moderate, the news is far from unambiguous, with widespread secondary price shocks continuing to make their impact felt.

Food prices were down - by 2.2% - but this was mainly influenced by seasonal decreases in the price of fruit and vegetables and fruit. Bread, dairy products and cheese prices also fell. Fuel prices were

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This market will drive a sane person batty at times, I have to tell you. Remember about 2-3 months ago, every day oil dropped people ran into technology stocks as a "safe haven"? We were shaking our head sadly and saying, how is this a safe haven... in time this will be proven to be a false assertion. But that did not stop the stocks from running up 5-10-15% each time oil dropped a few bucks as hedge funds had to find something to "play". Remember, as we always say, perception is reality. Until reality strikes. Lately we've seen poor earnings from Dell (DELL), we've seen bad news out of the semiconductor industry yesterday, Corning (GLW) is struggling, we've seen Qualcomm (QCOM) ...

No one knows where oil is heading. Only four months ago (May ’08), oil cleared $120 a barrel on its way to $145. Within a month, analysts were calling for $150, even $200 oil. Countless graphs and charts surfaced showing how demand was outpacing supplies. Pundit after pundit commented that emerging markets like China and India were fueling an unstoppable mega-boom for black gold. Then Russia invaded Georgia, and oil took a nose dive falling more than 20 consecutive days from $145 down to $115 a barrel. Hurricane Gustav gave it a brief shot in the arm, but the damage was less than expected and oil rolled over the next day. Now analysts are predicting oil will fall to $100 or even $85 a barrel. Again the charts and graphs are surfacing, this time showing that both international and domestic demand for oil is ...

Be careful how you define “neglected.” The most common adage amongst investing commentators and pundits is to go “against the crowd” or be “contrarian” with your investments. On the surface, this is great advice. To produce truly outstanding investment results, you need to invest in a particular investment or sector before that idea catches on. And if your reason for buying something is because it’s already up triple digits… you’re probably too late. However, it’s important to define the concept of “against the crowd.” For most people, the concept of being a contrarian involves buying investments that have little if any coverage from the mainstream financial media. After all, if the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times isn’t writing about it, few people should know about it, right? Wrong. Large publications like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times are typically very, very late to the ...