NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures for
October delivery surged more than $20 a barrel on Monday, the
biggest gain on record, on the day the contract expires.
Crude oil for delivery in November was up only about $6 a
barrel in much more active trade.
Below are analyst comments:
GENE MCGILLIAN, ANALYST, TRADITION ENERGY, STAMFORD,
CONNECTICUT:
"I realize that this expiration day and expirations in
commodities can be really volatile, but this is scarily so.
We've been looking for something that might be a good indicator
as to what occurred other than there was a short squeeze and
somebody was kind of looking hurt pretty badly.
"Up until today, I think that the largest one-day move that
I remember seeing is under $12 and today, we doubled that... It
pretty readily points to the expiration trading being the main
culprit."
AMANDA KURZENDOERFER, COMMODITIES ANALYST, SUMMIT ENERGY,
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY:
"The market went crazy here and it looks like the weakness
of the dollar was a fuel for the sharp price increase. NYMEX
October crude was also expiring and that provoked
short-covering."
TOM BENTZ, ANALYST, BNP PARIBAS, NEW YORK:
"The dollar is getting killed, the expiration of the
October contract, inventories in Cushing are very low, many
Gulf refineries are coming back up. And the bailout package is
viewed as support for the economy."
DANIEL FLYNN, ANALYST, ALARON TRADING, CHICAGO:
"The run here in crude was the weaker dollar and with
October going off the board they just put a short squeeze on it
and just ran it up."
PETER BEUTEL, ANALYST, CAMERON HANOVER, NEW CANAAN,
CONNECTICUT:
"It starts with the $700 billion bailout. Then we have the
October contract expiring. Then we had all this bullish news
from Russia to OPEC. We had been focusing so much on the
demand dropping that the $700 billion takes that off the table.
The dollar is down, the stocks are down and now investulators
are jumping back into oil."
TOM KNIGHT, TRADER, TRUMAN ARNOLD, TEXARKANA, TEXAS:
"Short squeeze, crude expiration-- that's it in a nutshell.
The dollar did drop further today, but you'll note that the
October-November crude spread blew way, way out."
CHRIS JARVIS, CAPROCK RISK MANAGEMENT, NEW HAMPSHIRE:
"With the dollar sinking more in one day against the Euro
since April 2001, it's no surprise that commodities, and more
specifically oil, are spiking higher"
(New York Energy Desk, 646-223-6050)
