Forbes – Hedge funds and other speculators trade billions of dollars worth of oil futures without intending to ever take delivery of a single drop of fuel. Even so, their impact can be profound on oil prices, and thus the major stocks like Exxon Mobile, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.
This fact has not gone unnoticed in Washington. When Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs ( GS – news – people ) banker and Treasury Department official, was nominated last year to chair the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission, he contradicted the previous claims of the energy futures’ chief regulator and disputed the notion that speculators have no impact on energy trading.
