Morgan Stanley
So, one would assume that the bump in the CFTC’s numbers on the participation of oil speculators to about 50% means that Morgan Stanley, who for some reason have oil storage facilities, have been reclassified as speculators even though they can take physical delivery of product. They predict the prices, they help make the prices by buying futures, they can resell their contracts or sock them away - and now they’re taking a minority stake in Dubai Mercantile Exchange, so they’ll also get a cut of the trades themselves. If the financial markets weren’t in such a mess I’d assume there’d be some form of investigation, which would be hard to do since the commodities markets are opaque and Morgan Stanley doesn’t report earnings from commodities separately. The scary bit is what if the bump isn’t a reclassification of Morgan Stanley - what if they’re listed as hedgers meaning that true speculative involvement was even larger?