IT'S A NICE ROUND NUMBER...:

Oil at $80 a Barrel?: With energy prices falling despite Hurricane Gustav, traders are talking about the end of a speculative bubble (Moira Herbst, 9/02/08, Business Week)

Oil prices have slid so far and so fast that the retreat has led analysts to predict further puncturing of what they call a speculative bubble. Many analysts don't see a floor at $100, but rather at levels as low as $70 or $80. "This is start of a fall to $80 crude by the end of the year, maybe as early as September," says Joel Fingerman, principal of FundamentalAnalytics.com, a Chicago-based energy consulting firm.

"Oil prices are dropping because they are inflated," says Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer (OPY). "You cannot sustain an artificial price forever. At the end of the day supply-demand fundamentals will take over."

...but still artificially high.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2008 7:13 AM