The recent run-up in oil prices could have further to go as most analysts are likely to begin raising their year-end oil price targets, according to market research firm Birinyi Associates in Stamford, Connecticut.
“Given several considerably lower expectations, we think it is reasonable to expect upgrades,” they said in a research commentary, noting that crude oil prices were already above most firms’ year-end targets.
U.S. front-month crude hit an intraday high of $73.23 on Thursday, the highest intraday level since prices hit $75.69 on Oct. 21.
A year-end oil price target of note recently came from Goldman Sachs, which raised its end-of-2009 oil price forecast on June 4 to $85 a barrel from $65.
Oil’s climb partly reflects weakness of the U.S. dollar and expectations that demand may be picking up as the global recession abates.
— Graphic courtesy of Birinyi Associates, Inc.
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Oil’s climb partly reflects weakness of the U.S. dollar and expectations that demand may be picking up as the global recession abates.
Maybe we should add the following reason as well: And expectations that speculation might pay off.
- Posted by Nikkei 225It’s here again. The price of oil will be driven up by speculators. They couldn’t care less about the destruction ehich it brings upon the real economy. BTW, the biggest owner of crude oil supplies in the US is not Exxon, as one would expect, but Goldman Sachs! It is time for the government to declare oil a strategic commodity and restrict purchases of oil only to its actual users.
- Posted by James