Oil Markets No Place for D.C. Quick Fix

The oil market pulls the stock market, the stock market leads the oil market. Is there any practical difference anymore?

The last week of action in oil has seen almost a 20% drop in the price in futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In the S&P, we've seen a similar, if less incendiary 5% drop. Did the stock market move inspire the oil decline, or did oil move the stock market?

The "endless bid" in oil, my phrase for investment interest in black gold, has never seen such vindication than in the action we've seen the past week. It's caused this uncomfortable volatility we've seen and an "interconnectedness" between oil and stocks that belies logic.

Through ETFs like USO and ETNs like OIL, investors have been given access to the futures markets directly and immediately. This has helped swamp out whatever legitimate hedge interests there were left in the oil futures game and made the prices that we see represented unreliable and fundamentally inaccurate.

This week's risk aversion, dollar strength and flight to Treasuries has seen oil plummet, as investor interest quickly scatters.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission rumblings about crackdowns on "speculation" (a dirty word that doesn't really apply here) have investors heading for the exits on oil even more quickly.

Margin increases and position limits are nice ideas and simple for the simpletons at the CFTC and in Washington to comprehend, but they will have little to no practical effect on the way that the market operates now.