NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – U.S. regulators launched one of the biggest ever crackdowns on oil price manipulation on Tuesday, suing two well-known traders and two trading firms owned by Norwegian billionaire John Fredriksen for allegedly making $50 million by squeezing markets in 2008.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said traders James Dyer of Oklahoma’s Parnon Energy, and Nick Wildgoose of Europe-based Arcadia Energy, amassed large physical positions at a key U.S. trading hub to create the impression of tight supplies that would boost oil prices.

Later they dumped those barrels back onto the market, causing prices to crash and racking up profits from short positions they had accrued in futures markets, the suit said.

“Defendants conducted a manipulative cycle, driving the price of WTI (crude) to artificial highs and then back down, to make unlawful profits,” the lawsuit filed in New York said.

While the civil suit comes after three years of heightened scrutiny into oil price speculation by the CFTC, it also arrives as at a time when President Barack Obama is seeking to reassure Americans he is trying to curb high U.S. gasoline prices and ensure they aren’t subject to manipulation.

The suit names two traders familiar to U.S. oil market veterans, who recall Dyer and Wildgoose from their days as high-flying traders at BP Plc (BP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in the early 2000s, when the British oil giant’s trading practices were under scrutiny due to its large ownership of oil tanks at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for U.S. oil futures.

BP was hit with a record $2.5 million fine by the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2003 for alleged U.S. oil market manipulation, which it paid without admitting any wrongdoing.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When oil prices fell below $120 a barrel in early New York trade last Thursday, a few big companies that are major oil consumers started buying around $117.

It looked like a bargain. Brent crude had been trading above $120 for a month. But the buying proved ill-timed. Crude kept on falling.

“They were down millions by the end of the day, trying to catch a falling piano,” an executive at a major New York investment bank said.

Never before had crude oil plummeted so deeply during the course of a day. At one point, prices were off by nearly $13 a barrel, dipping below $110 a barrel for the first time since March.

Oil’s descent followed the biggest one-day price drop in silver since 1980 on Wednesday, after hedge fund titan George Soros was reported to be selling. Exchange operators raised silver’s margin requirements, making it more costly to trade the metal and sending investors out of the market. Silver plunged by 20 percent, more by week’s end. The rout unnerved some commodity investors.

Oil just doesn’t fall by 10 percent in the course of a normal day, though. In commodities markets, oil is king, and its daily contract turnover, typically around $200 billion, is usually able to absorb even large inflows or outflows of investment.

The rare moves of $10 a barrel usually are set off by dramatic events — the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1991, or the collapse in 2008 of Lehman Bros bank, which both led to recessions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several commodity hedge fund titans suffered double-digit losses last week as oil fell by a near-record $16, money managers who invest in the funds told Reuters on Monday.

While some of the losses will likely be recovered after Monday’s price rebound of nearly $7 a barrel, last week’s fund results underscore how oil’s sharp fall caught some top traders off guard.

Astenbeck II, the flagship $2.6 billion commodity fund run by Phibro’s head trader Andrew Hall, ended last week down 12 percent, one of the fund’s investors said on Monday, requesting anonymity.

London-based BlueGold, whose head trader Pierre Andurand, like Hall, has made a name for himself taking long directional bets on oil prices, suffered double-digit losses in the $2.1 billion fund, two investors said. The $5 billion fund Clive Capital lost $400 million, the Financial Times reported.

And a little-known Dutch hedge fund called Transtrend was said to be among the biggest losers, suffering losses on its $6 billion commodity-oriented fund, one investor said. An official at the fund said it had been “a very bad week,” but did not offer specific figures.

Bleeding hundreds of millions in a week is painful for even large funds, but there was no evidence that any had been wiped out by the slide, according to interviews with over a dozen fund industry sources. And in the past, high volatility has contributed to the funds’ biggest paydays.

BlueGold famously gained around 200 percent in 2008 by accurately calling oil’s rise to a record $147 a barrel, and anticipating its subsequent plunge to $35 five months later.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some of the biggest names in commodity hedge funds suffered double-digit losses last week as oil fell by a near-record $16, money managers who invest in the funds told Reuters on Monday.

While some of the losses will likely be recovered after Monday’s oil price rebound of nearly $7 a barrel, last week’s fund results underscore how the sharp fall caught some top oil traders off guard.

Astenbeck II, the flagship commodity fund run by Phibro’s head trader Andrew Hall, ended last week down 12 percent, one of the fund’s investors said on Monday, requesting anonymity.

Those losses, which would amount to more than $300 million based on the fund’s value of around $2.6 billion near the end of April, erased year-to-date gains.

Another fund licking wounds from last week’s rout in commodities markets is London-based BlueGold, whose head trader Pierre Andurand, like Hall, is known to take sometimes long directional bets on oil prices.

BlueGold, with assets under management of around $2.1 billion, suffered a double-digit loss, said two portfolio managers who invest in commodity-focused hedge funds. They did not give BlueGold’s exact percentage loss. BlueGold had gained 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2011, the sources said.

Phibro and BlueGold declined to comment.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When oil prices fell below $120 a barrel in early New York trade last Thursday, a few big companies that are major oil consumers started buying around

$117.

It looked like a bargain. Brent crude had been trading above $120 for a month. But the buying proved ill-timed. Crude kept on falling.

“They were down millions by the end of the day, trying to catch a falling piano,” an executive at a major New York investment bank said.

Never before had crude oil plummeted so deeply during the course of a day. At one point, prices were off by nearly $13 a barrel, dipping below $110 a barrel for the first time since March.

Oil’s descent followed the biggest one-day price drop in silver since 1980 on Wednesday, after hedge fund titan George Soros was reported to be selling. Exchange operators raised silver’s margin requirements, making it more costly to trade the metal and sending investors out of the market. Silver plunged by 20 percent, more by week’s end. The rout unnerved some commodity investors.

Oil just doesn’t fall by 10 percent in the course of a normal day, though. In commodities markets, oil is king, and its daily contract turnover, typically around $200 billion, is usually able to absorb even large inflows or outflows of investment.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When oil prices fell below $120 a barrel in early New York trade last Thursday, a few big companies that are major oil consumers started buying around $117.

It looked like a bargain. Brent crude had been trading above $120 for a month. But the buying proved ill-timed. Crude kept on falling.

“They were down millions by the end of the day, trying to catch a falling piano,” an executive at a major New York investment bank said.

Never before had crude oil plummeted so deeply during the course of a day. At one point, prices were off by nearly $13 a barrel, dipping below $110 a barrel for the first time since March.

Oil’s descent followed the biggest one-day price drop in silver since 1980 on Wednesday, after hedge fund titan George Soros was reported to be selling. Exchange operators raised silver’s margin requirements, making it more costly to trade the metal and sending investors out of the market. Silver plunged by 20 percent, more by week’s end. The rout unnerved some commodity investors.

Oil just doesn’t fall by 10 percent in the course of a normal day, though. In commodities markets, oil is king, and its daily contract turnover, typically around $200 billion, is usually able to absorb even large inflows or outflows of investment.

The rare moves of $10 a barrel usually are set off by dramatic events — the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1991, or the collapse in 2008 of Lehman Bros bank, which both led to recessions.

NEW YORK, May 9 (Reuters) – When oil prices fell below $120 a barrel in early New York trade last Thursday, a few big companies that are major oil consumers started buying around $117.

It looked like a bargain. Brent crude had been trading above $120 for a month. But the buying proved ill-timed. Crude kept on falling.

“They were down millions by the end of the day, trying to catch a falling piano,” an executive at a major New York investment bank said.

Never before had crude oil plummeted so deeply during the course of a day. At one point, prices were off by nearly $13 a barrel, dipping below $110 a barrel for the first time since March.

Oil’s descent followed the biggest one-day price drop in silver since 1980 on Wednesday, after hedge fund titan George Soros was reported to be selling. Exchange operators raised silver’s margin requirements, making it more costly to trade the metal and sending investors out of the market. Silver plunged by 20 percent, more by week’s end. The rout unnerved some commodity investors.

Oil just doesn’t fall by 10 percent in the course of a normal day, though. In commodities markets, oil is king, and its daily contract turnover, typically around $200 billion, is usually able to absorb even large inflows or outflows of investment.

The rare moves of $10 a barrel usually are set off by dramatic events — the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1991, or the collapse in 2008 of Lehman Bros bank, which both led to recessions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Roubini Global Economics, a major investment advisory firm, told clients on Thursday they should take profits from commodities markets, cutting exposure to raw goods to neutral from overweight, the firm’s head commodities strategist told Reuters.

In a note to clients, the New York-based consultant to hedge funds, private equity houses, sovereign wealth funds and other investors advised paring broad commodities exposure for the first time since at least mid-2010.

“We’re seeing a number of signs, both locally and globally, that indicate holders of commodities indices should take profits for now,” Roubini commodities strategist Shelley Goldberg said in a phone interview.

“We still think there is long-term upside in commodities and we’re not saying go short, but for clients who are long we’re recommend taking profits and waiting.”

Roubini Global’s call comes as markets posted one of their largest one-day sell-offs in years. The firm had previously recommended being overweight commodities indices. Several commodities had surged to multi-year highs in April.

The CRB index of 19 major commodities plunged 4.9 percent on Thursday and Brent crude oil posted its largest one-day drop in dollar terms ever, falling by more than $12 a barrel.

Beginning in 2005, the New York-based firm’s founder, economist Nouriel Roubini, predicted that a U.S. housing bubble would trigger a major economic recession. By 2008, the U.S. economy had fallen into its worst tailspin since the Great Depression.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When gasoline prices shot to $4 a gallon in 2008, sticker shock cut fuel demand and helped send world oil prices tumbling by more than $100 a barrel in just five months.

Pump prices have returned to near those highs, averaging $3.95 a gallon after rising 36 percent in a year. Oil has also soared, with Brent trading just over $122 a barrel and U.S. crude over $110.

But this time, there are ample reasons to suspect $4 gasoline won’t slash demand or trigger another oil price rout. Outrage over prices among American drivers, who consume an eighth of the world’s oil, is turning into resignation with summer driving season around the corner. Motorists may bristle, and alarm over fuel costs is growing in Washington, but experts say the tipping point at which prices would slash demand has likely risen sharply since 2008.

“In 2008, $4 gasoline prices seemed so high they were almost inconceivable. They won’t be viewed the same way this time,” said Lars Perner, a consumer behavior expert at the University of Southern California, who has written about fuel.

“Back then, the price at which demand fell off sharply was around $4. Today, the price may be $5.”

Beyond the deja vu factor, several other market shifts make a demand collapse less likely. Although new cars are becoming more fuel efficient, fewer Americans are buying them, and the average age of a U.S. passenger vehicle is 10 years.

Meanwhile, used U.S. car sales outpaced new car sales by more than 3-to-1 last year, when 11.5 million new light vehicles were sold, down 31 percent from the annual average in the decade before the U.S. economic downturn.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When U.S. gasoline prices shot to $4 a gallon in 2008, sticker shock cut fuel demand and helped send world oil prices tumbling by more than $100 a barrel in just five months.

Pump prices have returned to near those highs, averaging $3.95 a gallon after rising 36 percent in a year. Oil has also soared, with Brent trading above $122 a barrel.

But this time, there are ample reasons to suspect $4 U.S. gasoline won’t slash demand or trigger another oil price rout.

Outrage over prices among American drivers, who consume an eighth of the world’s oil, is turning into resignation with summer driving season around the corner. Motorists may bristle, and alarm over fuel costs is growing in Washington, but experts say the tipping point at which prices would slash demand has likely risen sharply since 2008.

“In 2008, $4 gasoline prices seemed so high they were almost inconceivable. They won’t be viewed the same way this time,” said Lars Perner, a consumer behavior expert at the University of Southern California, who has written about fuel.

“Back then, the price at which demand fell off sharply was around $4. Today, the price may be $5.”

Beyond the deja vu factor, several other market shifts make a demand collapse less likely. Although new cars are becoming more fuel efficient, fewer Americans are buying them, and the average age of a U.S. passenger vehicle is 10 years.