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I think that crude oil market is only speculative sector as whole financial markets at all. Smart money make news as justification of their manipulate actions.
I think he's right. I don't see a break out like this putting in a long-term top below 120. I thought it might stall out and retrace a bit while long positions were building, but that just didn't happen.
Crude oil is a deliverable contract. This limits speculation. A potential closure of the Suez Canal which is controlled by Egypt could affect supplies to Europe and has an impact on spot prices.
There is no such thing called "smart money" and there is no secret manipulation.
If you want to manipulate market prices you need to hold a huge percentage of open interest and also be a physical actor on the market. This is not possible with crude oil. OPEC has tried to control market prices and basically failed. The failure can be explained by basic game theory.
There have been traders trying to game the silver market and natural gas market in the past which had considerable repercussions. In the end this has led to new rules limiting the amount of contracts that can be held by a single large trader.
In the current oil market situation more than 70 percent of whole trades - are paper (speculative) contracts versus 30 percent of the physical (real) contracts. I think the normal oil pricing improbable in these conditions, by definition.
Of course there is speculation to some extent. Speculation leads to an overextension of price, as could well be observed for the gold (spot and futures) market. But speculation is not manipulation.
The Dec 2020 crude oil contract trades around $ 80 per barrel which is probably a fair price based on the production cost of newly developed oil wells. The current price of $ 106 represents the fear of a shortage due to the current political tensions, of course amplified by speculation.
