Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
Anyone read nutcase Jim Cramer's rant on this in today's RM? The guy really needs to take a long vacation. He made even less sense than some of the posters here, and that is saying a lot. He has been desperately trying to suck up to the Obama administration since his ritual humiliation courtesy of Jon Stewart. Guess this was part of it, but he is rapidly losing any credibility.
Bottom line is, it is not easy to draw the line between investing, trading, speculation and manipulation. Everyone would agree that outright manipulation is wrong, eg false reporting of positions or phony trades. If I decide to buy a lot of spot crude and store it on a tanker and sell into the forward market though, what is wrong with that? If specs drive up futures prices, as Cramer seems to be trying to argue, there are only two possible outcomes. Either they liquidate or they take delivery. Each alternative will exert a downward force on prices, either now or in the future. Guys like Cramer can't seem to grasp this aspect of futures, maybe because they are stock traders and don't understand the zero sum nature of futures.